ParfumBall: The Sniffer

1. Welcome

Welcome to the ParfumBall project. ParfumBall is a Java based network analyzer and packet sniffer - much like Ethereal (at the moment, it has an extremely modest feature set compared to Ethereal). It is meant to be an Eclipse plugin to enable Java programmers capture and analyze network packets all within the comfort of their familiar Eclipse environment.

Starting from version 0.1.0, ParfumBall uses Ethereal for reading, capturing and analyzing packet traces. This is possible because Ethereal exports its core functionality as a library.

Older versions of ParfumBall were designed to be an extensible framework to allow developers write their own implementations of packet analyzers using the PacketAnalyzer framework. The PacketAnalyzer framework is the key to expanding the set of protocols that ParfumBall can understand and analyze. We may come back to this approach at some later time.

For those interested in the name, a "perfume ball" has to do with cricket. A perfume ball is a delivery by a bowler that goes so close to the face of a batsman that he can smell the leather - hence the name. In the late 70s and early 80s, the West Indians ruled cricket - particularly with their deadly pace quartet of Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, Joel Garner and Malcolm Marshall. They were the pioneers of the perfume ball.

2. Current Status

New! ParfumBall 0.1.0 Released [Jun 22, 2005]

After a long lapse (the last release of ParfumBall was in Nov 2004), I have been able to spend some time again on ParfumBall. This release of ParfumBall is significantly different in design from earlier versions. Starting from release 0.1.0 of ParfumBall, the Ethereal library is used in reading and analyzing packet capture files. The generation of packet capture files is still by using a JNI interface to WinPcap.

ParfumBall is currently under active development. I would classify it as pre-alpha. At the moment, the following is implemented:

• The latest release is 0.1.0. You can get it here. The release comes with a release notes. Do go through the notes for information on installation, dependencies etc.
  

There is a lot to do in terms of the feature set, bugs, documentation, protocol analysis etc.

3. The Roadmap

Before every release, I make a release plan for that release. This helps me stay focussed on what is required for the next release. The roadmap for ParfumBall 0.1.1 is here.

4. Feedback and Bugs

If you are using ParfumBall, I would love to hear from you. Please let me know how you like it, which protocols are important to you etc. If you find any bugs, please report them on the project's bug list. Bugs can be reported here.

5. Licensing

ParfumBall is distributed under GPL.