[Winpcap-users] Looking for some help or advice with an issue

[Charles.Neff at mccoys.com]

I've been using Winpcap through Wireshark (ethereal before the change) for 
a few years now to help track down possible network issues, and something 
I've noticed through out is now becoming a problem that I need some help 
with. 

When capturing POS traffic off of registers, locally at my remote 
locations, I'm getting strange results as far as loss of packet info to 
different degrees. 

We use FacetWin terminal emulation for our custom POS system that uses 
telnet.  When monitoring the tcp traffic from a register, I'm not seeing 
the echoed responses from the POS server, only the transmitted data from 
the registers.  Also, I will lose traffic from one register completely if 
another session of FacetWin is started on another register, and I will 
begin to only see the data from that second register, even though the 
initial register is still being used.  This will continue to happen as new 
sessions are opened on different or previous registers. 

Using the same FacetWin program but changing the login info so that I am 
telneted into the POS server with my username (as opposed to just logging 
in as a register), I can see all traffic as I should and it will never 
drop or be replaced by another session.  As soon as the POS side of the 
server is accessed for transactions, the problem occurs. 

These issues are happening with the Credit/Debit Signature pads that we 
have recently attempted to rollout with issues of lock ups, and the loss 
of traffic data is making it difficult to capture packets at the time of a 
lockup.  These pads are connecting to the same server as the registers. 

I'm running the sniffer locally, on a Cisco switch with port mirroring 
turned on.  I've also tried using a straight hub.  I've monitored the 
router port, and I've tried monitoring only one port for one register at a 
time.  I'm not filtering any of the data, just trying to capture 
everything.  We are using Wyse terminals for the registers, and as I said 
FacetWin for terminal emulation.  The POS server is Unix based. 

Given the way this problem presents itself, and some research I've done, 
I'm leaning towards the issue somehow being caused by the POS programming, 
but I don't know how it would be effecting the packets, or changing them 
so they wouldn't be picked up by Wireshark.   

Since I'm on the network side, I'm going to need some compelling 
information or ideas to get anywhere with the programmers on figuring this 
out. 

If anyone has any suggestions or ideas, please let me know.  At this point 
I am truely greatful for any and all help. 

thank you 

_charley 
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