5.1. SteelScript NetShark

This documentation assumes you are already familiar with the NetShark Appliance, specifically concepts like Capture Jobs and Views. If you are not already familiar with these concepts, see Background on the NetShark architecture and the NetShark documentation on the support site.

The primary interface to the NetShark related SteelScript functionality is the class NetShark. An instance of this object represents a connection to a NetShark server, and can be used to examine packet sources and existing views on the server, as well as to configure and create new views, capture jobs, etc.

There are many more classes in the NetShark libraries, representing things like views, capture jobs, trace clips, etc. But these should never be instantiated directly from scripts, they are returned by methods on NetShark objects.

Documentation available in this module:

• Background on the NetShark architecture
• SteelScript NetShark Tutorial
• Class Reference
  • NetShark, Packet Sources and Views
  • NetShark API v4.0 classes
  • System Settings
• NetShark Glossary

5.1.1. API Versions

This code base supports multiple API versions. It can connect with systems that support either v4.x or v5.x. The API version is automatically detected when connecting to a NetShark and the appropriate underlying API classes are used. Once establishing a connection, the detected version can be retrieved by calling NetShark.get_protocol_version().

The NetShark object will automatically instantiate sub-objects of the appropriate version:

Object	v4.x	v5.x
Capture Job	Job4	Job5
Interface	Interface4	Interface5
Trace Clip	Clip4	Clip4
View	View4	View4
Output	Output4	Output4

Note that in some cases (such as View objects), the underlying class did not change from v4.x to v5.x and as such the v4.x class is used even in v5.x