// Copyright 2012 Google, Inc. All rights reserved. // // Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style license // that can be found in the LICENSE file in the root of the source // tree. /* Package pcap allows users of gopacket to read packets off the wire or from pcap files. This package is meant to be used with its parent, http://github.com/google/gopacket, although it can also be used independently if you just want to get packet data from the wire. Reading PCAP Files The following code can be used to read in data from a pcap file. if handle, err := pcap.OpenOffline("/path/to/my/file"); err != nil { panic(err) } else { packetSource := gopacket.NewPacketSource(handle, handle.LinkType()) for packet := range packetSource.Packets() { handlePacket(packet) // Do something with a packet here. } } Reading Live Packets The following code can be used to read in data from a live device, in this case "eth0". if handle, err := pcap.OpenLive("eth0", 1600, true, pcap.BlockForever); err != nil { panic(err) } else if err := handle.SetBPFFilter("tcp and port 80"); err != nil { // optional panic(err) } else { packetSource := gopacket.NewPacketSource(handle, handle.LinkType()) for packet := range packetSource.Packets() { handlePacket(packet) // Do something with a packet here. } } Inactive Handles Newer PCAP functionality requires the concept of an 'inactive' PCAP handle. Instead of constantly adding new arguments to pcap_open_live, users now call pcap_create to create a handle, set it up with a bunch of optional function calls, then call pcap_activate to activate it. This library mirrors that mechanism, for those that want to expose/use these new features: inactive, err := pcap.NewInactiveHandle(deviceName) if err != nil { log.Fatal(err) } defer inactive.CleanUp() // Call various functions on inactive to set it up the way you'd like: if err = inactive.SetTimeout(time.Minute); err != nil { log.Fatal(err) } else if err = inactive.SetTimestampSource("foo"); err != nil { log.Fatal(err) } // Finally, create the actual handle by calling Activate: handle, err := inactive.Activate() // after this, inactive is no longer valid if err != nil { log.Fatal(err) } defer handle.Close() // Now use your handle as you see fit. PCAP Timeouts pcap.OpenLive and pcap.SetTimeout both take timeouts. If you don't care about timeouts, just pass in BlockForever, which should do what you expect with minimal fuss. A timeout of 0 is not recommended. Some platforms, like Macs (http://www.manpages.info/macosx/pcap.3.html) say: The read timeout is used to arrange that the read not necessarily return immediately when a packet is seen, but that it wait for some amount of time to allow more packets to arrive and to read multiple packets from the OS kernel in one operation. This means that if you only capture one packet, the kernel might decide to wait 'timeout' for more packets to batch with it before returning. A timeout of 0, then, means 'wait forever for more packets', which is... not good. To get around this, we've introduced the following behavior: if a negative timeout is passed in, we set the positive timeout in the handle, then loop internally in ReadPacketData/ZeroCopyReadPacketData when we see timeout errors. PCAP File Writing This package does not implement PCAP file writing. However, gopacket/pcapgo does! Look there if you'd like to write PCAP files. Note For Windows 10 Users If you're trying to use 64-bit winpcap on Windows 10, you might have to do the crazy hijinks detailed at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/38047858/compile-gopacket-on-windows-64bit */ package pcap