NAME

       idl2wrs - CORBA IDL to Wireshark Plugin Generator

SYNOPSIS

       idl2wrs <filename>

DESCRIPTION

       idl2wrs is a program that takes a user specified CORBA IDL file and generates "C" source
       code for a Wireshark "plugin".

       This resulting file can be compiled as a Wireshark plugin, and used to monitor GIOP/IIOP
       traffic that is using this IDL.

       idl2wrs is actually a shell script wrapper for two Python programs. These programs are:

       •   wireshark_be.py Contains the main IDL Visitor Class

       •   wireshark_gen.py Contains the Source Code Generator Class

       idl2wrs supports heuristic dissection of GIOP/IIOP traffic, and some experimental code for
       explicit dissection, based on Object Key <→ Repository Id mapping. However, code for
       heuristic based plugins is generated by default, and users should consider this the
       preferred method unless you have some namespace collisions.

OPTIONS

       Currently there are no options. idl2wrs can be invoked as follows.

        1. To write the C code to stdout.

               idl2wrs  <your_file.idl>

               eg: idl2wrs echo.idl

        2. To write to a file, just redirect the output.

               idl2wrs echo.idl > packet-test.c

ENVIRONMENT

       idl2wrs will look for wireshark_be.py and wireshark_gen.py in $PYTHONPATH/site-packages/
       and if not found, will try the current directory ./

       The -p option passed to omniidl (inside idl2wrs) indicates where wireshark_be.py and
       wireshark_gen.py will be searched. This may need tweaking if you place these files
       somewhere else.

       If it complains about being unable to find some modules (eg tempfile.py), you may want to
       check if PYTHONPATH is set correctly.

       eg:  PYTHONPATH=/usr/lib/python3/

SEE ALSO

       wireshark(1), tshark(1)

NOTES

       idl2wrs (including wireshark_be.py and wireshark_gen.py) are part of the Wireshark
       distribution. The latest version of Wireshark can be found at https://www.wireshark.org.

       idl2wrs uses omniidl, an IDL parser, and can be found at http://omniorb.sourceforge.net/

TODO

       Some of the more important things to do are:

       •   Improve Explicit dissection code.

       •   Improve command line options.

       •   Improve decode algorithm when we have operation name collision.

AUTHORS

       Original Author
       Frank Singleton <frank.singleton[AT]ericsson.com>

                                            2023-08-24                                 IDL2WRS(1)