Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

This is a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) file for DaCoPAn2 Animator. It is aimed to help user to find answers for his or hers questions.

General questions

How do I see something on the screen?
How do I load files?
Why are some of the controls gray and not available?
What if I want to create my own PEFs?

MSC specific questions

How can I see all of the variables for a unit in the Unit Flow window?
How can I see all of the variables / fields in a unit when I'm viewing the encapsulation?
Why does the note panel take up so much space?
There are too many packets on top of each other, is there anything I can do about it?
Why are the units just horizontal lines on the screen?
What does it mean that one of the units has a red border in the encapsulation?
How can show the encapsulation of a particular unit?

TSC specific questions

Why I don't see anything?
Why the last packet is not on the right end of the screen?
Why there are duplicate notices to some packets?
Why I can't see all flows simultaneously?

Settings specific questions

Where is the language selection menu?
How does the settings dialog work?

General questions

How do I see something on the screen?

You need to load something first. A good choice is loading a pre-designed scenario file (xxx.sce). If none are available, you can also load a protocol events file (yyy.pef), which contains raw protocol data from a recorded protocol exchange.

After you have loaded the file, you can press play to see something. You will be looking at the lowest layer of the exchange, and the progress line will begin to move downward and show lines in the message sequence chart as the protocol events occur. If you want to, you can change to TSC view to see data with another animation type. For TSC view, see also this question.

How do I load files?

Press the load button in the upper left corner of the window, marked with an icon of a folder. After this you need to select whether you want to load a scenario file or a PEF file. The default is to show both of types. In some cases there might not be any scenario or PEF files available at your default directory and in this case you will not see anything in the file dialog by default. In this case you can browse your file structure to find some scenario or PEF files.

Also see the manual section on loading and saving files.

Why are some of the controls gray and not available?

Because they are not relevant or possible actions in the situation you are currently in. Examples of this would be that "play" is not a relevant action if there is no file loaded. Another example would be that it's not possible to press play if you are already playing.

What if I want to create my own PEFs?

It's not too difficult, but takes a bit of effort. For this you will need 3 things: a) a network with at least 2 machines (a real network works as well as a simulated, if you know how to simulate a network properly) b) the ability to run tcpdump on these 2 machines simultaneously. c) the DaCoPAn analyzer program running on a Linux machine to analyze the dumps into a pef file. There is more on this in the specific help of the analyzer. There you can read about the particular tips and tricks you might need to get what you want into the pef.

MSC specific questions

How can I see all of the variables for a unit in the Unit Flow window?

By dragging the note panel divider bar downwards until the variable area is tall enough to show all the variables you need to see.

How can I see all of the variables / fields in a unit when I'm viewing the encapsulation?

Unfortunately it's not possible at this time. The vertical space available it divided evenly among the relevant layers, and it's not possible to resize the layers. A good option is to view the unit that you want to see in the Unit Flow animation, and see all the variables there.

Why does the note panel take up so much space?

In some cases the note panel will take up the whole vertical space on the right side of the screen by default. You can freely resize the note panel by dragging the divider.

There are too many packets on top of each other, is there anything I can do about it?

Yes, use nonlinear time axis. In this way you can separate all packets from each other.

Why are the units just horizontal lines on the screen?

Due to the fact that the events happen very quickly in the network. It also saves space in MSC Panel, so it is preferable. The arrow head shows the direction of the packet.

What does it mean that one of the units has a red border in the encapsulation?

This simply means that it is the unit which you had selected when you pressed the button to show the encapsulation diagram. It is the unit who's encapsulation you are viewing. In practice this means that the unit with the border was the last/newest unit sent from the host at the time of the progress line.

How can show the encapsulation of a particular unit?

Two good ways to select which unit to view are

TSC specific questions

Why I don't see anything?

When you start TSC animation, it is at begin. Thus you won't see anything before you proceed with the animation. This is true even if you have already watched some parts of MSC animation because TSC and MSC are not synchronized.

Another possibility is, that you have chosen to view a PEF or scenario that does not have TCP information. In this case TSC warns you and will not show anything.

Why the last packet is not on the right end of the screen?

That PEF or scenario has multiple flows. The end of x-axis is at that timestamp where the whole data transfer ends, not at that timestamp where some particular flow ends.

Why there are duplicate notices to some packets?

There are not. However, particularly in the case of ACK packets, it is common to have multiple packets that have same sequence number (ACK number) and are sent very near of each other. In this case packets are also drawn such that they overlap each other. You can put your cursor over that packet and you should see some number telling how many overlapping packets there are. Other possibility is to use scale sliders to separate packets from each other.

Why I can't see all flows simultaneously?

Because it is not wise. TSC uses packets sequence number (ACK number) to place it in y-axis. In different flows, packets have different sequence numbers (and thus ACK numbers) and this makes it impossible to print all of them at same time.

Settings specific questions

Where is the language selection menu?

The language selection menu has also been translated, so if it is localized into a language that you don't know, you can find it by selecting the fourth menu item from the left and its bottommost sub-menu. (It might also prove interesting to take a moment or two to learn what the word "language" is in all the localized languages!)

How does the settings dialog work?

First of all, settings dialog is divided to three parts:

When you press the settings button or select Settings from menu bar, you will see MSC or TSC settings depending on are you watching MSC or TSC mode. You can select different settings from the list on the left side of the settings dialog. You can also select setting directly from Settings menu at menu bar.

MSC settings contains one tab for each layer present in the animation, plus one tab for scale setting, and one tab for performance settings.

TSC settings contains one tab for animation settings, one tab for graphical elements, one tab for notices and one tab for unit variables.

From general settings, you can save current settings, restore default settings or load previously saved settings. From there you can also change language.