Ethereal is a packet analyser with a graphical front end that supports drill-down. Ethereal fully supports the basic IPv6 protocols, and all TCP and UDP-based application protocols running over IPv6. It is widely used to develop and troubleshoot IPv6 applications and protocols. Proposed extension protocols that are used or developed within 6NET could be supported with additional or improved dissectors if required.

Ethereal is a useful network protocol analyser for Unix and Windows. Because it is free, it is IPv6 enabled and it runs on many system platforms; At PSNC it is often used when there is a need to examine the network flows. Ethereal offers a graphical interface and allows setting up different filters. In case of Linux systems, PSNC more often uses a standard tool – tcpdump, which is build in the system and is generally sufficient in its functionality. But in case of windows system, there is no builtin tool for analysing packets, so Ethereal is very useful.