This is a WireShark dissector to decode the Minecraft protocol.  It is incomplete but useful.

Home page: http://file///home/chaos/public_html/alan/games/video/minecraft/minecraft-dissector.html



run Make in the directory

it expects /usr/include/wireshark to exist, on ubuntu aptitude install wireshark-dev

It should copy the plugin to ~/.wireshark/plugins, and then loading a wireshark packet dump should decode the packet types.

When I tested, I used a tcpdump with full packets, I'd recommend the same or things will probably break.

ex:
tcpdump -w minecraft.dump -s 0 'port 25565'

Enjoy!