April 21, 2026

Allwinner H5 network driver -- using Wireshark

On my Fedora linux system this is a standard package. I have to run it as root in order to have permission to access the network interface, then I launch it from the command line. 
wireshark
On my system "eno1" is the standard/main network interface, thanks to the wacky Fedora naming scheme for network interfaces.

The main trick is specifying a capture filter. Here are several choices: 

host 192.168.0.61
ether host 02:01:05:d4:18:d4
broadcast
I use the ether host since I want to see all traffic. I enter the capture filter, then double click on the network interface and away I go.

Strange things

It is always worth running Wireshark. You see and learn about things you never would have suspected.

The first thing I see is a DHCP exchange that obtains 192.168.0.68. This is an address I never considered -- but my hosts file shows that I assigned this IP to an "Orange Pi PC2 running Armbian" back in 2020. I have this in my dhcp.conf file, set to boot "h5.bin".

So this DHCP exchange and the big TFTP transfer that follows is U-Boot booting Kyu and using the MAC address I got from the U-boot environment.

Once Kyu gets up and running, I see one ARP announcement, but for 192.168.0.62 since that is the IP address I configured Kyu for. Then the capture shows 3 ARP requests for 192.168.0.68, directed to our MAC address. The Kyu console shows endless ARP requests, but I am not dumping any details for them.

It would only make sense to also use the 68 IP address inside Kyu. It is easier to change that than it is to make changes to the U-boot setup, which would also involve changing dhcp.

Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's electronics pages / tom@mmto.org