I have a simple application which connects to port 50000 on a Linux box, 
communicates, then disconnects.
I'd like to log the entire communication in each direction in an easy-to-read 
format so that I can see what is going on. The protocol is ASCII but with a 
few control chars thrown in (eg STX/ETX/ACK/etc, and I wouldn't like to rule 
out NULL chars ever appearing in the data).
I can easily run the server side at (say) port 50001 instead and have 
"something" listen on port 50000 and connect to port 50000 and pass the data 
back and forth between the two, logging it as it goes, although I don't know 
what to choose for "something".
Or I could look at Wireshark, which I've played with in the past but never in 
anger, and my general feeling is that unless I learn how to sort the trees 
from the wood then this is going to give me too much information and I'm going 
to spend more time sorting through it than I do resolving the issues in the 
protocol.
Or maybe there are better alternatives altogether!
[If it's relevant: the Linux server has no GUI but is a VirtualBox virtual 
machine on another Linux server that does have a GUI where I could run 
Wireshark. The device connecting to the server is not a PC and has no 
diagnostic capability built in.]
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