libpcap 1.11.0b10

Description:

libpcap 1.11.0b10

libpcap
Python binding for the libpcap C library.


Overview

Python libpcap 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,
WinPcap

PyPI record.
Documentation.

libpcap 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,
(MORE pcap man pages)


libpcap 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:
import libpcap
libpcap.config(LIBPCAP=None) # system's libpcap library will be used
# or
libpcap.config(LIBPCAP="npcap")
# or
libpcap.config(LIBPCAP="wpcap") # included wpcap library will be used
# or
libpcap.config(LIBPCAP="tcpdump") # included tcpdump library will be used
# or # (currently works only for Linux x64)
libpcap.config(LIBPCAP="libpcap shared library absolute path")

About original libpcap:
LIBPCAP 1.x.y by “The Tcpdump Group”:

https://www.tcpdump.org

Anonymous Git is available via:

git clone https://github.com/the-tcpdump-group/libpcap.git

formerly from:


Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Network Research Group <[email protected]>
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, gzipped
PostScript,
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,
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.



Requirements


It is a fully independent package.
All necessary things are installed during the normal installation process.


ATTENTION: currently works and tested only for Windows.



Installation
Prerequisites:

Python 3.8 or higher

https://www.python.org/
with C libpcap 1.8.1 is a primary test environment.


pip and setuptools

https://pypi.org/project/pip/
https://pypi.org/project/setuptools/



To install run:

python -m pip install --upgrade libpcap



Development
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:

git clone https://github.com/karpierz/libpcap.git libpcap

and run:

python -m pip install ./libpcap

or on development mode:

python -m pip install --editable ./libpcap



License


Copyright (c) 2016-2024 Adam Karpierz
Licensed under the BSD license
https://opensource.org/license/bsd-3-clause
Please refer to the accompanying LICENSE file.




Authors

Adam Karpierz <[email protected]>



Changelog

1.11.0b10 (2024-08-13)

Add support for Python 3.13
Setup (dependencies) update.



1.11.0b9 (2024-02-18)

Improvements and cleanup for win32.
Source code refactoring and cleanup.



1.11.0b8 (2024-01-30)

Upgrade to the latest libpcap API 1.11.0-PRE
Sync/upgrade of tests to the latest libpcap API 1.11.0-PRE
Setup update (now based on tox >= 4.0).
Add support for Python 3.12
Drop support for Python 3.7
Add support for PyPy 3.10
Drop support for PyPy 3.7 and 3.8
Copyright year update.
Cleanup.



1.11.0b7 (2022-09-10)

Upgrade to the latest libpcap API 1.11.0-PRE
Sync/upgrade of tests to the latest libpcap API 1.11.0-PRE
Add nonblocktest.py
Tox configuration has been moved to pyproject.toml



1.11.0b6 (2022-08-25)

Upgrade to the latest libpcap API 1.11.0-PRE
Setup fixes and update.



1.11.0b5 (2022-07-28)

Upgrade to the latest libpcap API 1.11.0-PRE
Add support for macOS x64 (thank you very much Erik Rainey emrainey@Github
and lydia-hogan@Github!).
Add support for Python 3.10 and 3.11
Add support for PyPy 3.7, 3.8 and 3.9
Setup update (currently based mainly on pyproject.toml).



1.11.0b4 (2022-01-10)

Drop support for Python 3.6.
Copyright year update.
Setup update.



1.11.0b2 (2021-11-10)

Upgrade to the latest libpcap API 1.11.0-PRE
Copyright year update.
backward incompatibility - libpcap.cfg is now a regular INI file.
Setup update.



1.10.0b15 (2020-10-18)

Add support for Python 3.9.
Drop support for Python 3.5.
Removing dependence on atpublic.
Ability to specify the backend programmatically.
Establishing system’s libpcap as default backend.
Fixed a critical setup bug (thank you very much msrst@Github!).
General update and cleanup.
Fixed docs setup.



1.10.0b10 (2020-01-16)

Add support for Python 3.8.
Drop support for Python 3.4.
Drop support for Python 2.
Upgrade to the latest libpcap API 1.10.0-PRE
Establishing npcap as default backend.
Internal npcap’s dll-s have been removed due to ev. license problems.

Add support for Linux x64:
add internal tcpdump’s libpcap.so v.1.9.1 with remote capture support.
system’s tcpdump’s libpcap.so can also be used (via libpcap.libpcap.cfg).


Added ReadTheDocs config file.
Setup update and cleanup.



1.10.0b5 (2019-09-16)

Upgrade to the latest libpcap API 1.10.0-PRE
Upgrade npcap’s libpcap dll-s to the 0.996
Minor setup fixes and improvements.



1.10.0b3 (2019-02-15)

Upgrade to the latest libpcap API 1.10.0-PRE
Upgrade npcap’s libpcap dll-s to the 0.99rc9
Update required setuptools version.
Minor setup improvements.
Updates of tests.



1.10.0b1 (2018-11-08)

Upgrade to the latest libpcap API 1.10.0-PRE
Upgrade npcap’s libpcap dll-s to the 0.99rc7
Update required setuptools version.



1.0.0b14 (2018-05-09)

Update required setuptools version.



1.0.0b13 (2018-05-09)

Upgrade npcap’s libpcap dll-s to the 0.99rc5



1.0.0b12 (2018-05-08)

Upgrade to the latest libpcap.



1.0.0b10 (2018-03-31)

Upgrade to the latest libpcap.
Improve and simplify setup and packaging.
Improve and update tests.



1.0.0b9 (2018-02-26)

Improve and simplify setup and packaging.



1.0.0b8 (2018-02-25)

Upgrade to the latest libpcap API 1.9.0
Setup improvement.



1.0.0b7 (2017-12-18)

Fix the error of platform detecting (thanks to Dan ???).



1.0.0b6 (2017-10-11)

Upgrade to the libpcap API 1.9.0



1.0.0b5 (2017-10-08)

Upgrade to the libpcap API 1.8.1
Add support for libpcap from Npcap.



1.0.0b4 (2017-10-04)

Fourth beta release.



1.0.0b3 (2017-08-28)

Third beta release.



1.0.0b1 (2017-08-27)

First beta release.



1.0.0a16 (2017-08-26)

Next alpha release.



1.0.0a0 (2017-06-08)

First alpha release.



0.0.1 (2016-09-23)

Initial release.