The Network Monitoring and Packet Analysis with Wireshark Training Course is a comprehensive hands-on program designed to equip IT professionals with the knowledge and practical skills required to capture, analyze, troubleshoot, and monitor network traffic using Wireshark, the world’s leading open-source packet analyzer.
Participants will gain a solid understanding of network communication protocols, packet structures, TCP/IP analysis, troubleshooting methodologies, performance monitoring, and security investigation techniques. Through extensive laboratory exercises and real-world scenarios, attendees will learn how to identify network issues, analyze application traffic, diagnose connectivity problems, detect anomalies, and support incident investigations using packet-level analysis.
The course emphasizes practical packet capture techniques, protocol decoding, filtering, traffic interpretation, and best practices for enterprise network monitoring and troubleshooting.
Duration 3 Days – 21 hrs.
Objectives
- Understand packet analysis fundamentals and network communication principles.
- Capture network traffic using Wireshark.
- Navigate the Wireshark interface efficiently.
- Apply display and capture filters effectively.
- Analyze Ethernet, ARP, IPv4, IPv6, TCP, UDP, and ICMP traffic.
- Troubleshoot common Layer 2–Layer 7 network problems.
- Identify network latency, retransmissions, and packet loss.
- Analyze DNS, DHCP, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, SMTP, and other application protocols.
- Detect suspicious or malicious network activities through packet inspection.
- Monitor network performance using packet statistics and expert analysis.
- Generate reports and document packet analysis findings.
- Apply packet analysis techniques for network optimization and incident response.
Target Audience
- Network Engineers
- Network Administrators
- Systems Administrators
- Infrastructure Engineers
- Technical Support Engineers
- NOC Engineers
- SOC Analysts
- Cybersecurity Analysts
- IT Support Professionals
- Help Desk Engineers
- DevOps Engineers
- Cloud Infrastructure Engineers
- IT Auditors
- Technical Consultants
Prerequisites
- Basic knowledge of computer networking
- Familiarity with TCP/IP concepts
- Understanding of IP addressing and subnetting
- Basic Windows or Linux administration skills
- No prior Wireshark experience required
Course Outline
Day 1 – Wireshark Fundamentals and Packet Capture
Module 1: Introduction to Network Monitoring
- Importance of packet analysis
- Network troubleshooting methodology
- OSI Model review
- TCP/IP Model review
- Network communication process
Module 2: Introduction to Wireshark
- Wireshark architecture
- Installation and setup
- User interface walkthrough
- Packet capture workflow
- Capture options
- Interface selection
Module 3: Capturing Network Traffic
- Live packet capture
- Capture filters
- Saving capture files
- Importing packet captures
- Capture best practices
Module 4: Understanding Packet Structure
- Ethernet frames
- MAC addressing
- Packet headers
- Encapsulation
- Decapsulation
- Packet timestamps
Hands-on Labs
- Install Wireshark
- Capture LAN traffic
- Analyze packet headers
- Save and reopen packet captures
Day 2 – Protocol Analysis and Network Troubleshooting
Module 5: IP Protocol Analysis
- IPv4 analysis
- IPv6 analysis
- ICMP packets
- ARP protocol
- Routing behavior
Module 6: TCP and UDP Analysis
- Three-way handshake
- TCP flags
- TCP sessions
- Retransmissions
- Flow control
- Window scaling
- UDP communication
Module 7: Application Layer Protocol Analysis
- DNS
- DHCP
- HTTP
- HTTPS
- FTP
- SMTP
- POP3
- IMAP
- SNMP
- SSH
Module 8: Advanced Filtering
- Display filters
- Coloring rules
- Search functions
- Conversation filters
- Endpoint filtering
- Protocol filtering
Hands-on Labs
- Analyze DNS lookups
- Capture HTTP sessions
- Inspect TCP connections
- Troubleshoot failed communications
- Create advanced display filters
Day 3 – Advanced Packet Analysis and Network Security
Module 9: Performance Analysis
- Packet loss detection
- Latency analysis
- Throughput analysis
- Round-trip time
- Bandwidth utilization
- Expert Information window
Module 10: Network Security Analysis
- Detecting suspicious traffic
- Malware communication indicators
- Port scanning detection
- ARP spoofing identification
- DNS anomalies
- Unauthorized connections
- Basic intrusion investigation
Module 11: Wireshark Statistics and Reporting
- Protocol hierarchy
- Endpoints
- Conversations
- IO Graphs
- Flow Graph
- Service Response Time
- Exporting objects
- Report generation
Module 12: Best Practices and Enterprise Use Cases
- Enterprise troubleshooting workflow
- Incident response support
- Network performance monitoring
- Security operations integration
- Documentation standards
- Packet analysis checklist
Comprehensive Hands-on Labs
- Diagnose network performance issues
- Investigate slow application response
- Analyze DNS failures
- Detect abnormal network traffic
- Perform packet-based incident investigation
- Generate packet analysis reports
- End-to-end troubleshooting case study
