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I very much like what Cloudshark is doing with PCAP traces and would like to see more integration into the main site similar to how images are handled but with the ability to scroll through the capture while reading the question (pcaps mostly will be attached to questions):

enter image description here

Why? Since PCAP traces would help debugging many classes of network-related problems, facilitating access to the traces would add to the value of the site. It also does have a "you are in the matrix" look to outsiders and thus is highly professional. There is a good chance that Cloudshark would be interested in promoting their service through SF and proactively cooperate in integration efforts.

Edit: I got this E-Mail from Zach Chadwick, a (the?) "Lead Developer" at Cloudshark signaling a wish to contribute to the discussion and the project, if it happens to become one:

We found your post earlier today on ServerFault and we'd be totally into something like that for the community.

[...]

We don't have anybody that has enough points to contribute to the discussion, nor do we know how to go about getting in touch with the devs over there. For now, we love people using CloudShark.org to share captures and simply embedding the URL in their questions and answers on ServerFault.

We're happy to keep the discussion going, or if you have any contact with their developers, we'd love to chat about making it easy to embed files somehow on their sites.

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  • Since this is a feature mainly concerning the SF main site (and probably of little interest to other sites, possibly with the exception of U&L.SE and NE.SE), I posted this question to meta.SF.
    – the-wabbit
    Commented Sep 3, 2013 at 16:02
  • 1
    While I like the idea in principle, have a +1 and all that, I'm not sure I've seen very many people express a wish to share traffic captures with us...
    – Rob Moir
    Commented Sep 3, 2013 at 16:21
  • 7
    There are a couple sites that may want this. networkengineering.stackexchange.com, and security.stackexchange.com seems like they might occasionally want this.
    – Zoredache
    Commented Sep 3, 2013 at 16:30
  • 1
    @RobM we do occasionally request packet captures - it would be convenient to display them in a nice format. Images are currently hosted through "an arrangement" with imgur (among other things, our images don't get expired away) -- perhaps a similar "arrangement" could be reached with cloudshark.
    – voretaq7 Mod
    Commented Sep 3, 2013 at 16:30
  • It does happen once in a while, usually through a locker service somewhere. I've reviewed a few captures from SF questions. This would make things more convenient!
    – sysadmin1138 Mod
    Commented Sep 3, 2013 at 17:04
  • Although people do not "express a wish to share captures", in many cases captures would add great value to the questions. I would have hoped that inclusion of captures would happen on a more regular, even frequent basis if we had such a facility integrated in the "ask question" form.
    – the-wabbit
    Commented Sep 3, 2013 at 17:06
  • Oh don't get me wrong, I support the idea, I upvoted it and all.. I'm just wondering how to justify it as any kind of priority to SO devs.
    – Rob Moir
    Commented Sep 3, 2013 at 17:42
  • Perhaps what we should request is an application platform.. so people can write apps to run on the SE platform.
    – Tom O'Connor Mod
    Commented Sep 3, 2013 at 20:10
  • @RobM It has cool looks. I am under the impression that anything with fancy visuals is getting to the top of the queue speedily as it is a magnet for visitors.
    – the-wabbit
    Commented Sep 3, 2013 at 20:11
  • I have shared wireshark screenshots multiple times in questions asking for help, or demonstrating an issue. I think this would be very cool, but I do wonder if that many people will use it
    – Mark Henderson Mod
    Commented Sep 3, 2013 at 21:37
  • I'm not convinced this will be overly useful and I can see it now I have network problem - here my cloudsharkz, pleeez halp k thnks bai
    – user9517
    Commented Sep 4, 2013 at 7:05
  • 2
    Is there a way to obscure/sanitize IPs or FQDNs? I don't care personally, but there are bound to be people that wouldn't use it unscrubbed even if the IP info was internal LAN info only.
    – TheCleaner
    Commented Sep 4, 2013 at 13:39
  • I forgot the most important point - if we had Cloudshark integration, we would be able to provide even more valuable advice on @KyleBrandt 's sophisticated networking questions.
    – the-wabbit
    Commented Sep 7, 2013 at 9:18
  • @TheCleaner you always can sanitize manually before uploading by running it through a netexpect script or tcprewrite, but obviously, it would be more convenient to have this functionality in Cloudshark itself. As of now, there seems to be no such functionality.
    – the-wabbit
    Commented Sep 7, 2013 at 16:35
  • Just a ping to let you know that we didn't forget about this, the devs have just been really busy. We're going to look at feasibility soon.
    – Tim Post Staff
    Commented Sep 25, 2013 at 13:13

1 Answer 1

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Well, in case nobody from Stack Exchange staff sees this for a while, I suggest you send an email to [email protected] with a copy of the CloudShark developers email and a link to this thread.

Then we can probably leave it up to SE and CloudShark to figure out between themselves.

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  • This - send to team@ they'll work with the devs to get it implemented and/or shoot it down :)
    – Zypher Mod
    Commented Sep 4, 2013 at 22:45
  • @Zypher make sure this gets implemented, or I'll hunt you down and ruin your tailgate at the next Eagles game you go to.
    – MDMarra
    Commented Sep 5, 2013 at 16:48
  • 1
    @MDMarra HA i prefer to watch football at the bar... Hockey ... now that's another story
    – Zypher Mod
    Commented Sep 5, 2013 at 17:31
  • Done. <!-- blah -->
    – the-wabbit
    Commented Sep 7, 2013 at 9:40
  • 2
    Email received - give us a bit of time to see what's involved here
    – Tim Post Staff
    Commented Sep 9, 2013 at 11:45
  • @TimPost Any progress on Cloudshark integration? About to post a question that would benefit from it and I remembered this thread.
    – rtf
    Commented Oct 3, 2013 at 22:45
  • It's on our feature agenda, our devs are just rather backed up at the moment. It's not falling through the cracks, it's just going to take a bit of time
    – Tim Post Staff
    Commented Oct 4, 2013 at 5:18

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