Packet Data Decoding

Decoding interprets the packet contents according to the specific protocol and application. When a packet is decoded, its data is broken down into individual elements (for example, commands and flags). Whenever possible, the meaning of each element is displayed in readable text. When a packet is not decoded, its data is displayed in hexadecimal dump format with the corresponding EBCDIC and ASCII translations.

TCP packets on the ports specified in the SMARTTRACE parameter group are decoded. The following protocols are decoded:

Distributed Relational Database Architecture (DRDA)
FTP
HTTP
Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) (through HTTP ports)
Telnet

In addition to this decoding, you can enter the DECODE command on a Packet List panel to decode TCP packet data for other DRDA, FTP, HTTP, and Telnet ports. Decoding applies to the current session. If you exit the panel and then reenter it, enter the command again to perform specific decoding.

Packets that use the following protocols are also decoded by default:

Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP)
Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE)
Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)
Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP)
IPSec
Open Shortest Path First Interior Gateway Protocol (OSPFIGP)
Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) handshake
User Datagram Protocol (UDP) (for Enterprise Extender data only)