Release Notes

Note: Upgrading may require making changes to your code. Please see the upgrade instructions for more information.

v1.6.0

This release enhances Packet Viewer’s functionality with improved packet comment display, faster filter interactions, and more accurate status indicators. These updates provide users with a more seamless and informative packet analysis experience.

Key Changes

  • Introduced a new option for reading pcapng packet comments.
  • Significantly improved display filter performance and usability.
  • Enhanced status bar functionality with more accurate activity tracking.

UI Components

  • Added a new file option to CommentManagerOption, allowing automatic reading of pcapng packet comments from the file.
  • Greatly improved display filter interactions:
    • Increased speed and responsiveness.
    • Added ability to submit blank filters.
    • Implemented placeholder text in the filter input box.
  • Fixed the ‘activity’ indicator in the status bar to accurately track requests in flight.
  • Added ability to clear the lastApiError field from the status bar.

Deep Packet API

  • Updated packet list response to include a comments array for each packet, supporting the new CommentManager capability.

v1.5.0

September 24th, 2024

This release brings significant performance improvements to PacketViewer, addressing issues with duplicate API requests that were impacting responsiveness. Users should notice faster load times and smoother interactions, especially when working with larger packet captures.

Key Changes

  • Major performance boost due to fixes for duplicate API requests.
  • Introduced new Analysis Views for out-of-the-box tools that go beyond just packet analysis.
  • Improved package organization and import paths. See the upgrade instructions for details.
  • Upgraded to Wireshark 4.4.0 in the backend.

UI Components

  • Fixed a design issue causing multiple duplicate API requests when loading data from the server.
  • Resolved a bug triggering rapid sequential API requests when scrolling the packet list with the keyboard.
  • Eliminated an infinite loop of requests that occurred when encountering API errors.
  • Added withCredentials option to pass cookies through to API requests.
  • Added new Conversations Table View
  • Added new Endpoints Table View
  • Added new Packet Sequence Diagram (Ladder) View
  • Added new Packet Tree and Decode Analysis Views
  • Added new Protocol Hierarchy Table View

Deep Packet API

  • Changed the DNS response ordering slightly. The data remains the same but is delivered in a different order.
  • Updated the “invalid filter” message.

v1.4.1

August 26th, 2024

This release addresses a critical bug introduced in v1.4.0 affecting the PacketViewer component with custom columns. We strongly recommend all users running v1.4.0 to upgrade to v1.4.1.

Key Changes

  • Fixed a high-impact issue where moving or changing columns in the PacketList component could trigger an infinite loop, potentially leading to API server denial of service.
  • Updated both the UI Components and the Deep Packet API to resolve this bug.

UI Components

  • Resolved the infinite loop and crash issue caused by rearranging custom columns in the PacketList component.
  • Disabled the debug flag within the PacketList component to eliminate unnecessary console log output.

Deep Packet API

  • Removed an internal prefix string from values returned in the ColumnInfo.Format field, preventing the API from returning problematic data.

v1.4.0

August 21st, 2024

UI Components

  • New Drag+Drop items from the Decode Tree into the Packet List headers to create a new column with that field
  • New “Protocol Hierarchy Table” View
  • Fixes an issue with useId that prevented using Packet Viewer with React 16
  • Adds a data-pv-field attribute to the rendered Decode Tree DOM nodes

Deep Packet API

  • Improvements to the protocol hierarchy stats endpoint

  • Other

Added LICENSES files to both the Node module (in the distribution tarball) and the Docker image (located at /LICENSES) to catalog all the 3rd party software licenses that are included within Packet Viewer.

v1.3.1

July 31st, 2024

Deep Packet API

  • Added fetch-invalid-https configuration variable to allow ignoring certificate problems when downloading via HTTPS.

v1.3.0

July 23rd, 2024

UI Components

  • Fix bug when changing the sorting of the PacketList
  • Additional Follow-Streams supported for QUIC, HTTP2, DCCP, and SIP
  • New Views included in this release:
    • ConversationsTableView
    • EndpointsTableView
    • PacketSequenceView
    • PacketTreeView
    • PacketDecodeTreeView

Deep Packet API

  • Follow Stream supports new stream and substream parameters for some protocols
  • Changed the fol field to now be called followers in Decode responses in order to provide better Follow Stream selection
  • Add ability to decode HTTP3 headers
  • Conversation rate fields now return numeric float values instead of integers
  • Fixed a panic caused by zero-duration conversations
  • Added totalb (bytes) and totalf (frames) to the Endpoints response
  • Added DNS Answer Types to DNS stats endpoint
  • Upgraded to Wireshark 4.2.6

v1.2.0

June 25th, 2024

UI Components

  • Fixed performance/rendering error when clicking between packets in the PacketList
  • New: Added new CommentManager (opt-in) to provide packet comment editing capabilities on top of the PacketList component.
  • API errors are displayed in the Status Bar and a new onApiError callback is available to hook into them.

Deep Packet API

  • New: /stats/dns endpoint providing DNS Query and Response statistics
  • New: message_id field to API error messages
  • Changed: The file parameter is no longer required when calling /util/checkfilter
  • Upgraded to Wireshark 4.2.5

v1.1.0

May 3rd, 2024

UI Components

  • New: Rewrite UI in React (>=16.14.0)
  • New: Follow Stream tabs added to decode view (Supports TCP, UDP, TLS, and HTTP)
  • New: CSS variables and classes are exposed to support full customization of look and feel
  • New: Drag+Drop to re-order columns (non-persistent)
  • Fixed: Improve capabilities around resizing columns
  • Fixed: Eliminate code that was modifying window.title
  • Removed: Props enabledAnalysis, hideTitle, onClose
  • Updated: onError callback

Docker Service

  • Removed the browse endpoint and related CLI flags
  • Rename backend application pv-service
  • New: Output JSON structured logs to STDERR
  • Add --storybook mode to serve embedded UI samples and documentation
  • Updated to Wireshark 4.2.4

Deep Packet API Changes

  • Updated most API response fields to always be returned
  • Change /api/profiles response to be objects not array
  • New: Added /api/health endpoint for monitoring
  • New: ColumnInfo objects with column metadata added to /api/status response

v1.0.0

March 13th, 2024

  • UI: Users are able to sort columns by clicking on the headers
  • UI: Column widths can be adjusted by the user by dragging the divider between them
  • UI: Added new Drag+Drop capability to apply display filters from the decode tree.
  • API: new pf field in packet list and columnInfo struct in status
  • Added periodic license checking after initial startup
  • Updated to Wireshark 4.2.3

v0.0.5

February 14th, 2024

  • The docker image no longer runs processes as root (uid=0) and instead runs as pv (uid=1000)
  • Updated stylesheets: uses Roboto Mono and Inter fonts; removed gray backgrounds and some table header borders
  • Added a prefix configuration option to serve the built-in UI behind a “subdirectory” URL path
  • Add boolean flag hideTitle to prevent showing the filename inside the Vue/React component
  • Added a profile switching menu popup to the built-in UI. (Enable in the JS component via the enableProfileSwitching=true prop)
  • Fixed performance issues with large ladder diagrams
  • Upgraded to Wireshark 4.2.2 behind the scenes
  • Added a warning when displaying more than 500,000 rows in the packet list

v0.0.4

January 11th, 2024

  • Automatically removes downloaded files from the local cache after a configurable cache-lifetime timeout
  • The PacketViewer component can specify a requestInterceptor callback which will modify the URL parameters and HTTP headers being sent by API requests
  • Prints additional license information to the console in debug mode
  • Adds a sample profile available by default to the container ?profile=sample
  • Fixing UI scrolling issues for analysis tools
  • Adds a splash screen if running with no-ui=true
  • Fix minor UI issue with tooltip hover
  • Adds the sharkd-idle-timeout variable to control how long a PCAP file is held open in active memory

v0.0.3

December 5th, 2023

  • Add config framework unifying CLI, config.yaml, and ENV settings
  • Disable browse endpoint with --no-browse
  • Log http requests when --debug is enabled
  • Adds an onError callback to the React component
  • Allow passing a profile through the component and via URL (?profile=testprofile)
  • Added -dir to options that represented a path
  • Changed flag format to use double-dash
  • Move sharkd debug output under --sharkd-debug
  • Update to Wireshark 4.2.0 official release
  • Bugfix: Prevent component from writing to window.title
  • Bugfix: Improve display of long file names
  • Bugfix: Fix status bar for files with zero packets

v0.0.2

November 15th, 2023

  • Shipping support for React
  • Add support for API server to send CORS responses
  • Add ability to disable the self-hosted UI via the –no-ui flag
  • Add ability to read files from S3 Buckets
  • Enable GeoIP lookups
  • Add computed fields to the API
  • Add support for downloading a URL to a PCAP in the file property
  • Added /api/docs page
  • Enable TLS self-signed and LetsEncrypt support
  • Add 802.11 Endpoints tool
  • Use Wireshark v4.2.0.rc3

v0.0.1

October 17th, 2023

  • Initial Release of PacketViewer