[Winpcap-users] Failure to see broadband device

[Guy Harris]

On Apr 9, 2009, at 8:25 PM, Perry Kivolowitz wrote:

> I have installed a Sprint Broadband dongle on which I must take some
> measurements. At first it did not appear in ipconfig but I located the
> option: "Enable Network Adapter (NDIS)." Enabling this option causes  
> the
> adapter to be seen in ipconfig as any other on the machine.

Now that's a high quality user interface!  You have to choose an  
option to allow a device *you got in order to be able to access the  
Intarweb remotely* to be viewed as, err, umm, a network adapter.  It  
sounds as if somebody at Sprint, or whoever wrote the software that  
requires that option to be enabled, needs a visit from the UI Clue  
Fairy.

> Is Wireshark the definitive test to see if WinPcap is capable of
> detecting this type of adapter?

No - if anything is, it's WinDump's "-D" option.  However, I wouldn't  
be surprised if that also failed.

However, my *suspicion* is that the broadband adapter looks like a  
dial-up adapter, which means that it *might* not show up until you've  
opened a connection, and that if you open the "Adapter for generic  
dialup and VPN capture" you can capture PPP setup packets on that  
adapter (or any other dial-up adapter) before the connection is set up  
and continue to capture the PPP traffic on the adapter after the  
connection is set up.