An Erlang port interface to libpcap.

epcap includes a small example program called sniff.

Changes

• 0.05: The packet message format has changed and is now documented.

• 0.06: epcap doesn't register itself, so multiple instances can be run.

• 0.7.0: removed epcap_net.erl (moved to https://github.com/msantos/pkt)

QUICK SETUP

cd epcap
make
make examples

# Allow your user to epcap with root privs
sudo visudo
youruser ALL = NOPASSWD: /path/to/epcap/priv/epcap
# And if requiretty is enabled, disable it by using one of these
Defaults!/path/to/epcap/priv/epcap !requiretty
Defaults:youruser !requiretty

erl -pa ebin deps/*/ebin # or: ./start.sh

% Start the sniffer process
sniff:start_link().

% Use your interface, or leave it out and trust in pcap
sniff:start([{interface, "eth0"}]).

% To change the filter
sniff:start([{filter, "icmp or (tcp and port 80)"},{interface, "eth0"}]).

% To stop sniffing
sniff:stop().

USAGE

epcap:start() -> {ok, pid()}
epcap:start(Args) -> {ok, pid()}

    Types   Args = [Options]
            Options = {chroot, string()} | {group, string()} | {interface, string()} | {promiscuous, boolean()} |
                        {user, string()} | {filter, string()} | {progname, string()} | {file, string()} |
                        {monitor, boolean()} | {cpu_affinity, string()} | {cluster_id, non_neg_integer()}} |
                        {inject, boolean()} | {snaplen, non_neg_integer} | {buffer, non_neg_integer()}

    Packets are delivered as messages:

        {packet, DataLinkType, Time, Length, Packet}

    The DataLinkType is an integer representing the link layer,
    e.g., ethernet, Linux cooked socket.

    The Time is a tuple in the same format as erlang:now/0:

    {MegaSecs, Secs, MicroSecs}

    The Length corresponds to the actual packet length on the
    wire. The captured packet may have been truncated. To get the
    captured packet length, use byte_size(Packet).

    The Packet is a binary holding the captured data.

    If the version of the pcap library supports it, the pcap buffer
    size can be set to avoid dropped packets by using the 'buffer'
    option. The buffer size must be larger than the snapshot
    length (default: 65535) plus some overhead for the pcap data
    structures. Using some multiple of the snapshot length is
    suggested.

epcap:send(Ref, Packet) -> ok

    Types   Ref = pid()
            Packet = binary()

    Inject a packet on the network interface. To enable sending
    packets, start/1 must be called with the {inject, true} option
    (default: {inject, false}). When disabled, any data sent
    to the epcap port is silently discarded.

    Packet injection failures are treated as fatal errors, terminating
    the epcap port. Partial writes are not considered to be errors
    and are ignored (an error message will be printed to stderr if
    the verbose option is used).

PF_RING

    In case you want to compile epcap with PF_RING support,
    just specify the path to the libpfring and modified libpcap libraries
    via shell variable PFRING.

        PFRING=/home/user/pfring make

    As a result epcap binary will be linked with the following flags: -static -lpfring -lpthread

    To complete the configuration you need to set up the cluster_id option.
    The value of the cluster_id option is integer and should be in range between 0 and 255.

        epcap:start([{interface, "lo"}, {cluster_id, 2}]).

    You can also specify the option cpu_affinity to set up CPU affinity for epcap port:

        epcap:start([{interface, "lo"}, {cluster_id, 2}, {cpu_affinity, "1,3,5-7"}]).

SCREENSHOT

=INFO REPORT==== 27-Oct-2013::11:47:43 ===
    pcap: [{time,"2013-10-27 11:47:43"},
           {caplen,653},
           {len,653},
           {datalink,en10mb}]
    ether: [{source_macaddr,"F0:BD:4F:AA:BB:CC"},
            {destination_macaddr,"B3:4B:19:00:11:22"}]
    ipv6: [{protocol,tcp},
           {source_address,"2607:F8B0:400B:80B::1000"},
           {destination_address,"2002:26F:92:AE::123"}]
    tcp: [{source_port,80},
          {destination_port,47980},
          {flags,[ack,psh]},
          {seq,686139900},
          {ack,725208397},
          {win,224}]
    payload_size: 567
    payload: "HTTP/1.0 301 Moved Permanently..Location: http://www.google.ca/..Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8..Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 15:47:49 GMT..Expires: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 15:47:49 GMT..Cache-Control: public, max-age=2592000..Server: gws..Content-Length: 218..X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block..X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN..Alternate-Protocol: 80:quic....<HTML><HEAD><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text/html;charset=utf-8\">.<TITLE>301 Moved</TITLE></HEAD><BODY>.<H1>301 Moved</H1>.The document has moved.<A HREF=\"http://www.google.ca/\">here</A>...</BODY></HTML>.." 

TODO

• return error atoms/tuples instead of using errx

• add support for retrieving packet statistics using pcap_stats(3PCAP)

CONTRIBUTORS

• Olivier Girondel:

  • preliminary IPv6 support

• Harald Welte:

  • support reading packets from pcap file
  • SCTP support
  • datalink types

• Gregory Haskins:

  • application file fix

• Alexey Larin

  • support of devices without ipwq

• Artem Teslenko

  • allow listening on different interfaces