= Recording and viewing A-bis communication =

Recording
The bsc_hack application inside openbsc provides a command line option to automatically create a PCAP file. The resulting dump is only a subset of what is actually transmitted over the wire. Currently only Link Access Protol D-Channel (LAPD) messages are logged, the actual LAPD header is spoofed and only the TEI and SAPI information is invalid. This is mostly due mISDN not providing us with a LAPD header/frame and the encapsulation we use for wiretap/pcap. In the future there might be a dedicated encapsulation type for the complete mISDN traffic.

To write the protocol dump simply invoke bsc_hack:
./bsc_hack -p networking.pcap

Viewing
Wireshark already provides dissectors for the various protocols we use (LAPD, RSL, GSM-A, GSM-SMS...). The LAPD protocol dissector needs some minor configuration though. Go to Edit -> Preferences -> Protocols -> LAPD and check the checkbox saying "Use GSM Sapi Values". Afterwards wireshark will be able to display a lot of the A-bis protocol. There are some glitches in the protocol analysis, some missing features and dissection of OML is completely missing. Dumps for you
Here are some dumps that might be useful. Make sure that you only provide data from your own network and equipment (no IMSI/IMEI you do not know...)