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| author | Gilbert Ramirez <gram@alumni.rice.edu> | 1998-11-12 00:06:47 +0000 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Gilbert Ramirez <gram@alumni.rice.edu> | 1998-11-12 00:06:47 +0000 |
| commit | fcb4c78a6a01d22f0db9d6de870342511030cb01 (patch) | |
| tree | d32b2d7467b0266e722aa763c9b48cf0df2c802c /wiretap/README | |
| parent | c2eeef9467d44eb4ea2cd6bd08f62f5c9c293810 (diff) | |
| download | wireshark-fcb4c78a6a01d22f0db9d6de870342511030cb01.tar.gz | |
A lengthy patch to add the wiretap library. Wiretap is not used by default
because it is still in its infancy, but it can be compiled in optionally.
The library exists in its own subdirectory ethereal/wiretap. This patch also
edits all the packet-*.c files to remove the #include <pcap.h> line which is
unnecessary in these files. In the ethereal code, file.c is the most heavily
modified with #ifdef WITH_WIRETAP lines for the optional library.
svn path=/trunk/; revision=82
Diffstat (limited to 'wiretap/README')
| -rw-r--r-- | wiretap/README | 30 |
1 files changed, 30 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/wiretap/README b/wiretap/README new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..82e1aad7db --- /dev/null +++ b/wiretap/README @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +Wiretap is a library that is being developed as a future replacement for +libpcap, the current standard Unix library for packet capturing. Libpcap is +great in that it is very platform independent and has a wonderful BPF +optimizing engine. But it has some shortcomings as well. These shortcomings +came to a head during the development of Ethereal (http://ethereal.zing.org), +a packet analyzer. As such, I began developing wiretap so that: + +1. The library can easily be amended with new packet filtering objects. +Libpcap is very TCP/IP-oriented. I want to filter on IPX objects, SNA objects, +etc. I also want any decent programmer to be able to add new filters to the +library. + +2. The library can read file formats from many packet-capturing utilities. +Libpcap only reads Libpcap files. + +3. The library can capture on more than one network interface at a time, and +save this trace in one file. + +4. Network names can be resolved immediately after a trace and saved in the +trace file. That way, I can ship a trace of my firewall-protected network to a +colleague, and he'll see the proper hostnames for the IP addresses in the +packet capture, even though he doesn't have access to the DNS server behind my +LAN's firewall. + +5. I want to look into the possibility of compressing packet data when saved +to a file, like Sniffer. + + +Currently, only #2 is available. Wiretap doesn't even do any filtering yet. It +can only be used to read packet capture files. |