Python binding for the libpcap C library.
| Python |package_bold| module is a low-level binding for libpcap C library.
| It is an effort to allow python programs full access to the API provided
by the well known libpcap Unix C library and by its implementations
provided under Win32 systems by such packet capture systems as:
Npcap <https://nmap.org/npcap/>,
WinPcap <https://www.winpcap.org/>
PyPI record_.
Documentation_.
| |package_bold| is a lightweight Python package, based on the ctypes library. | It is fully compliant implementation of the original C libpcap from 1.0.0 up to 1.9.0 API and the WinPcap's 4.1.3 libpcap (1.0.0rel0b) API by implementing whole its functionality in a clean Python instead of C. | | Useful libpcap API documentation can be found at:
| Main pcap man page <https://www.tcpdump.org/manpages/pcap.3pcap.html>,
| (MORE pcap man pages) <https://www.tcpdump.org/manpages/>
|package_bold| uses the underlying libpcap C shared library as specified in libpcap.cfg (system's libpcap shared library is the default), but there is also ability to specify it programmatically by one of the following ways:
.. code:: python
import libpcap libpcap.config(LIBPCAP=None) # system's libpcap library will be used
libpcap.config(LIBPCAP="npcap")
libpcap.config(LIBPCAP="wpcap") # included wpcap library will be used
libpcap.config(LIBPCAP="tcpdump") # included tcpdump library will be used
libpcap.config(LIBPCAP="libpcap shared library absolute path")
LIBPCAP 1.x.y by "The Tcpdump Group":
Anonymous Git is available via:
git clone https://github.com/the-tcpdump-group/libpcap.git
formerly from:
| Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory | Network Research Group libpcap@ee.lbl.gov | ftp://ftp.ee.lbl.gov/old/libpcap-0.4a7.tar.Z
This directory contains source code for libpcap, a system-independent interface for user-level packet capture. libpcap provides a portable framework for low-level network monitoring. Applications include network statistics collection, security monitoring, network debugging, etc. Since almost every system vendor provides a different interface for packet capture, and since we've developed several tools that require this functionality, we've created this system-independent API to ease in porting and to alleviate the need for several system-dependent packet capture modules in each application.
Support for particular platforms and BPF:
For some platforms there are README.{system} files that discuss issues with the OS's interface for packet capture on those platforms, such as how to enable support for that interface in the OS, if it's not built in by default.
The libpcap interface supports a filtering mechanism based on the
architecture in the BSD packet filter. BPF is described in the 1993
Winter Usenix paper "The BSD Packet Filter: A New Architecture for
User-level Packet Capture" (compressed PostScript <https://www.tcpdump.org/papers/bpf-usenix93.ps.Z>, gzipped PostScript <https://www.tcpdump.org/papers/bpf-usenix93.ps.gz>,
PDF <https://www.tcpdump.org/papers/bpf-usenix93.pdf>__).
Although most packet capture interfaces support in-kernel filtering, libpcap utilizes in-kernel filtering only for the BPF interface. On systems that don't have BPF, all packets are read into user-space and the BPF filters are evaluated in the libpcap library, incurring added overhead (especially, for selective filters). Ideally, libpcap would translate BPF filters into a filter program that is compatible with the underlying kernel subsystem, but this is not yet implemented.
BPF is standard in 4.4BSD, BSD/OS, NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFly BSD, and macOS; an older, modified and undocumented version is standard in AIX. DEC OSF/1, Digital UNIX, Tru64 UNIX uses the packetfilter interface but has been extended to accept BPF filters (which libpcap utilizes). Also, you can add BPF filter support to Ultrix using the kernel source and/or object patches.
Linux has a number of BPF based systems, and libpcap does not support
any of the eBPF mechanisms as yet, although it supports many of the
memory mapped receive mechanisms. See the Linux-specific README <https://github.com/the-tcpdump-group/libpcap/blob/master/doc/README.linux>__,
for more information.
Note to Linux distributions and *BSD systems that include libpcap:
There's now a rule to make a shared library, which should work on Linux and *BSD, among other platforms.
It sets the soname of the library to "libpcap.so.1"; this is what it should be, NOT "libpcap.so.1.x" or "libpcap.so.1.x.y" or something such as that.
We've been maintaining binary compatibility between libpcap releases for quite a while; there's no reason to tie a binary linked with libpcap to a particular release of libpcap.
Prerequisites:
Python 3.9 or higher
pip and setuptools
To install run:
.. parsed-literal::
python -m pip install --upgrade |package|
Prerequisites:
Development is strictly based on tox. To install it run::
python -m pip install --upgrade tox
Visit Development page_.
Installation from sources:
clone the sources:
.. parsed-literal::
git clone |respository| |package|
and run:
.. parsed-literal::
python -m pip install ./|package|
or on development mode:
.. parsed-literal::
python -m pip install --editable ./|package|
| |copyright| | Licensed under the BSD license | https://opensource.org/license/bsd-3-clause | Please refer to the accompanying LICENSE file.
.. |package| replace:: libpcap .. |package_bold| replace:: libpcap .. |copyright| replace:: Copyright (c) 2016-2024 Adam Karpierz .. |respository| replace:: https://github.com/karpierz/libpcap.git .. _Development page: https://github.com/karpierz/libpcap .. _PyPI record: https://pypi.org/project/libpcap/ .. _Documentation: https://libpcap.readthedocs.io/ .. _Libpcap File Format: https://wiki.wireshark.org/Development/LibpcapFileFormat
Npcap <https://nmap.org/npcap/>__.FAQs
Python binding for the libpcap C library.
We found that libpcap demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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