Home » Other » General » Packet Sniffer Picking Up Weird Characters (Oracle 9.2.0.8, Microsoft .NET 2003, UNIX OS)
Packet Sniffer Picking Up Weird Characters [message #310556] Tue, 01 April 2008 11:21 Go to next message
comt0006
Messages: 7
Registered: April 2008
Location: Gatineau
Junior Member

Hello,

Our database network analyst has detected some strange characters within our calls to the database as follows:

There are symbols such as @, >, ; and spaces where they possibly should not be.

EXAMPLE:
--------
Begin :ret := XXXX.XXXX(:v1, :v2, :v3, :v4, :v5, @:v6, :v7, :v8, :v9, :v10, :v11, :v12, :v13, :v14, :v15, :v16, :v 17); End;

Please note the "@:v6" and the ":v 17". Note the "@" symbol in the first one and the " " space in the second one...

ANOTHER EXAMPLE:
----------------
Begin :ret := XXXX.XXXXX(:v1, :v2, :v3, :v4, <:v5, :v6, :v7, :v8, :v9, :v10, :v11, :v12, :v13, :v14); End;

Please note the "<:v5" where the "<" symbol is!?!?

Can anyone explain this? I have posted on numerous sites and looked for answers on the web with no results.

If anyone could help me this would be greatly apreciated.

Cheers....
Re: Packet Sniffer Picking Up Weird Characters [message #310564 is a reply to message #310556] Tue, 01 April 2008 12:16 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Michel Cadot
Messages: 68647
Registered: March 2007
Location: Nanterre, France, http://...
Senior Member
Account Moderator
It is the way packets are formatted.
Does it hurt? What is your real purpose?

Regards
Michel
Re: Packet Sniffer Picking Up Weird Characters [message #310576 is a reply to message #310564] Tue, 01 April 2008 13:25 Go to previous messageGo to next message
comt0006
Messages: 7
Registered: April 2008
Location: Gatineau
Junior Member

Hello,

This is not hurting our prcedures or calls by the applications (As far as I know) but our DBA is very concerned and requests that we find out why these chracters are there.

Other databases have within our department that are very similar have been sniffed and their results do not have these characters. Why?
Re: Packet Sniffer Picking Up Weird Characters [message #310577 is a reply to message #310576] Tue, 01 April 2008 13:36 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Michel Cadot
Messages: 68647
Registered: March 2007
Location: Nanterre, France, http://...
Senior Member
Account Moderator
Different versions or so.
Why are they concerned?
What are their concerns?
Why are they sniffing?

Regards
Michel
Re: Packet Sniffer Picking Up Weird Characters [message #310592 is a reply to message #310577] Tue, 01 April 2008 14:11 Go to previous messageGo to next message
comt0006
Messages: 7
Registered: April 2008
Location: Gatineau
Junior Member

Hi Michel,

These are very good questions:

Different versions or so.
--------------------------
No because we all ahve the same version on all of our database servers.


Why are they concerned?
-----------------------
Because our database is a lot slower than all of the rest.


What are their concerns?
------------------------
Their concern is that maybe this malformatted string or buffer if you will may be slowing down the calls to our database.


Why are they sniffing?
----------------------
Our database network analysts always sniff the lines 24/7 and then send the results to the DBAs. I don't know why... Maybe because of hacking?

Hope this helps....
Re: Packet Sniffer Picking Up Weird Characters [message #310599 is a reply to message #310592] Tue, 01 April 2008 14:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Michel Cadot
Messages: 68647
Registered: March 2007
Location: Nanterre, France, http://...
Senior Member
Account Moderator
Quote:
No because we all ahve the same version on all of our database servers.

And clients?

Quote:
Because our database is a lot slower than all of the rest.


Quote:
Their concern is that maybe this malformatted string or buffer if you will may be slowing down the calls to our database.

I think there may be about a thousand of other reasons before packets.

Quote:
Our database network analysts always sniff the lines 24/7 and then send the results to the DBAs. I don't know why... Maybe because of hacking?

Do they know the SQL*Net packets format?
How can they be allowed to do this?
Where I work if someone do this he is immediatly fired and sued.

Regards
Michel
Re: Packet Sniffer Picking Up Weird Characters [message #310608 is a reply to message #310599] Tue, 01 April 2008 14:55 Go to previous messageGo to next message
comt0006
Messages: 7
Registered: April 2008
Location: Gatineau
Junior Member

Hi Michel,

I am off for the day but I will follow up tomorrow with the answer to your questions.

Cheers...
Re: Packet Sniffer Picking Up Weird Characters [message #310611 is a reply to message #310608] Tue, 01 April 2008 15:09 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Michel Cadot
Messages: 68647
Registered: March 2007
Location: Nanterre, France, http://...
Senior Member
Account Moderator
I will go to bed now.
Do you know I really think to move to Ottawa. Nice place, isn't it?

Regards
Michel
Re: Packet Sniffer Picking Up Weird Characters [message #310843 is a reply to message #310611] Wed, 02 April 2008 10:33 Go to previous messageGo to next message
comt0006
Messages: 7
Registered: April 2008
Location: Gatineau
Junior Member

Hi Michel,

It's really nice here. We've had a crazzy winter though!! Lots of Snow out here!!

Well there's lots of stable government work out here for software people like us.


Quote:
No because we all ahve the same version on all of our database servers.

And clients?
---------------
The clients also have the exact same version. See we are all in an Intranet environment and all of the client computers are updated through the network. So you can assume they all have been upgraded at the same time (or when the user reboots)...


Do they know the SQL*Net packets format?
---------------------------------------------------
I would assume taht they do but I do not know what "SQL*Net packet format" is....

How can they be allowed to do this?
-------------------------------------
Since we are on an Intranet environment with no outside activity I think it is fair to say that this is not an issue.

Cheers....
Re: Packet Sniffer Picking Up Weird Characters [message #314435 is a reply to message #310843] Wed, 16 April 2008 12:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
comt0006
Messages: 7
Registered: April 2008
Location: Gatineau
Junior Member

Hi,

I am still looking for an answer as to why we are noticing weird characters (@, >, Wink within our database packets....

EXAMPLE:
------------
Begin :ret := XXXX.XXXX(:v1, :v2, :v3, :v4, :v5, @:v6, :v7, :v8, :v9, :v10, :v11, :v12, :v13, :v14, :v15, :v16, :v 17); End;

Please note the "@:v6" and the ":v 17". Note the "@" symbol in the first one and the " " space in the second one...

ANOTHER EXAMPLE:
----------------
Begin :ret := XXXX.XXXXX(:v1, :v2, :v3, :v4, <:v5, :v6, :v7, :v8, :v9, :v10, :v11, :v12, :v13, :v14); End;

Please note the "<:v5" where the "<" symbol is!?!?

Any help would be greatly appreciated....

Thanks...
Re: Packet Sniffer Picking Up Weird Characters [message #314436 is a reply to message #314435] Wed, 16 April 2008 12:25 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Michel Cadot
Messages: 68647
Registered: March 2007
Location: Nanterre, France, http://...
Senior Member
Account Moderator
This is something that formats the packet but you can't see it because you look at an ascii interpretation of the packet and the real packet.

As I said, if you don't know how the packet is built it is useless to try to understand what it is above all when you don't know how to look at packet.

Regards
Michel
Re: Packet Sniffer Picking Up Weird Characters [message #314438 is a reply to message #314436] Wed, 16 April 2008 12:27 Go to previous message
comt0006
Messages: 7
Registered: April 2008
Location: Gatineau
Junior Member

Salut

Un gros merci Michel pour ton aide.

CIAO
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