A good example of what Guy is talking about is the Citrix ICA protocol. It's listed at IANA, and the ports it uses are well-documented. However the protocol itself is proprietary and Citrix will not release enough information to decode it. I have figured out how to read the browse messages by staring at the packets, but until Citrix publicly documents the scheme I will never know for sure :-)
In short, don't assume that having a port number "registered" means there is a public record about what goes in the packets generated by any specific application. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Guy Harris" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Fardid, Reza" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, February 24, 2003 8:51 PM Subject: Re: [Ethereal-users] File Sharing and Media Protocols > On Mon, Feb 24, 2003 at 05:44:30PM -0800, Fardid, Reza wrote: > > Pardon me for asking, but what or who constitutes "a fully > > and publicly documented protocol" ? > > A protocol where you can get documentation on what the packets look like > without having to sign a non-disclosure agreement that would prevent one > from making publicly available software that dissects those packets. > > > What I know is that is can be sniffed, > > *ANY* protocol "can be sniffed" if, for example, it runs on Ethernet. > That's hardly sufficient to make it possible to write a dissector for > it; that just means you can read the raw bytes of the packet into a > sniffer; it doesn't mean the sniffer will be able to dissect the packet > and show you what the fields in the packet are. > > > and IANA recognizes it. > > "Recognizes" it in the sense that they have, for example, assigned a > port number to it? > > If so, that's also insufficient to make it possible to write a dissector > for it. That just means somebody's filled out this form: > > http://www.iana.org/cgi-bin/usr-port-number.pl > > and gotten a port number back for the IANA; having gotten that, they can > use that port number for a proprietary protocol and not publish > information on how it works. > > > I am trying to find out what I need to contribute, if I am > > neither the protocol developer, nor affiliated with the organization/entity > > that has developed the protocol ? > > You need to contribute either > > 1) a protocol spec for the protocol > > or > > 2) information about how to get a protocol spec for the > protocol. > > _______________________________________________ > Ethereal-users mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.ethereal.com/mailman/listinfo/ethereal-users >
