Provided by: netsniff-ng_0.6.8-3_amd64 bug

NAME

       netsniff-ng - the packet sniffing beast

SYNOPSIS

       netsniff-ng { [options] [filter-expression] }

DESCRIPTION

       netsniff-ng is a fast, minimal tool to analyze network packets, capture pcap files, replay
       pcap files, and redirect traffic between interfaces with the help of  zero-copy  packet(7)
       sockets.  netsniff-ng  uses  both Linux specific RX_RING and TX_RING interfaces to perform
       zero-copy. This is to avoid copy and system call overhead between kernel and user  address
       space.  When we started working on netsniff-ng, the pcap(3) library did not use this zero-
       copy facility.

       netsniff-ng is Linux specific, meaning there is no support for  other  operating  systems.
       Therefore  we  can keep the code footprint quite minimal and to the point. Linux packet(7)
       sockets and its RX_RING and TX_RING interfaces bypass the normal  packet  processing  path
       through  the  networking stack.  This is the fastest capturing or transmission performance
       one can get from user space out of the box, without having to  load  unsupported  or  non-
       mainline  third-party  kernel modules. We explicitly refuse to build netsniff-ng on top of
       ntop/PF_RING. Not because we do not like it (we do find it interesting),  but  because  of
       the  fact  that  it is not part of the mainline kernel. Therefore, the ntop project has to
       maintain and sync out-of-tree drivers to adapt them to their DNA. Eventually, we went  for
       untainted  Linux kernel, since its code has a higher rate of review, maintenance, security
       and bug fixes.

       netsniff-ng also supports early packet filtering in the kernel. It has  support  for  low-
       level  and  high-level  packet  filters  that  are  translated into Berkeley Packet Filter
       instructions.

       netsniff-ng  can  capture  pcap  files  in  several  different  pcap  formats   that   are
       interoperable with other tools. The following pcap I/O methods are supported for efficient
       to-disc capturing: scatter-gather, mmap(2), read(2), and write(2).   netsniff-ng  is  also
       able  to  rotate pcap files based on data size or time intervals, thus, making it a useful
       backend tool for subsequent traffic analysis.

       netsniff-ng itself also supports analysis, replaying, and dumping of  raw  802.11  frames.
       For  online  or  offline  analysis,  netsniff-ng  has  a built-in packet dissector for the
       current 802.3 (Ethernet), 802.11* (WLAN), ARP, MPLS, 802.1Q (VLAN), 802.1QinQ, LLDP, IPv4,
       IPv6,  ICMPv4,  ICMPv6,  IGMP,  TCP  and  UDP,  including  GeoIP  location analysis. Since
       netsniff-ng does not establish any state or perform reassembly during  packet  dissection,
       its  memory  footprint  is quite low, thus, making netsniff-ng quite efficient for offline
       analysis of large pcap files as well.

       Note that netsniff-ng is currently not multithreaded. However, this does not  prevent  you
       from starting multiple netsniff-ng instances that are pinned to different, non-overlapping
       CPUs and f.e. have different BPF filters attached.  Likely that at some point in time your
       harddisc  might become a bottleneck assuming you do not rotate such pcaps in ram (and from
       there periodically scheduled move to slower medias).  You  can  then  use  mergecap(1)  to
       transform  all  pcap  files  into  a  single large pcap file. Thus, netsniff-ng then works
       multithreaded eventually.

       netsniff-ng can also be used to debug netlink traffic.

OPTIONS

       -i <dev|pcap|->, -d <dev|pcap|->, --in <dev|pcap|->, --dev <dev|pcap|->
              Defines an input device. This can either be a networking device,  a  pcap  file  or
              stdin  (“-”).  In  case  of  a  pcap  file, the pcap type (-D option) is determined
              automatically by the pcap file magic. In case of stdin,  it  is  assumed  that  the
              input  stream  is  a  pcap  file. If the pcap link type is Netlink and pcap type is
              default format (usec or nsec), then each packet will be wrapped  with  pcap  cooked
              header [2].

       -o <dev|pcap|dir|cfg|->, --out <dev|pcap|dir|cfg|->
              Defines  the  output device. This can either be a networking device, a pcap file, a
              folder, a trafgen(8) configuration file or stdout (“-”). If the output device is  a
              pcap  or  trafgen(8) configuration file, it may include a time format as defined by
              strfime(3).  If used in conjunction with the -F option, each rotated file will have
              a  unique  time  stamp. In the case of a pcap file that should not have the default
              pcap type (0xa1b2c3d4), the additional option -T must be provided. If  a  directory
              is  given,  then,  instead of a single pcap file, multiple pcap files are generated
              with rotation based  on  maximum  file  size  or  a  given  interval  (-F  option).
              Optionally, sending the SIGHUP signal to the netsniff-ng process causes a premature
              rotation of the file. A trafgen configuration file can currently only be  specified
              if  the  input  device is a pcap file. To specify a pcap file as the output device,
              the file name must have “.pcap” as its extension. If stdout is given as  a  device,
              then  a  trafgen  configuration  will be written to stdout if the input device is a
              pcap file, or a pcap file if the input device is a networking device. If the  input
              device  is  a  Netlink  monitor device and pcap type is default (usec or nsec) then
              each packet will be wrapped with pcap cooked header  [2]  to  keep  Netlink  family
              number  (Kuznetzov's  and  netsniff-ng  pcap types already contain family number in
              protocol number field).

       -C <id>, --fanout-group <id>
              If multiple netsniff-ng instances are being started that all have the  same  packet
              fanout  group  id,  then  the  ingress  network  traffic  being  captured  is being
              distributed/load-balanced among these group participants. This gives a much  better
              scaling  than  running  multiple  netsniff-ng  processes  without  a  fanout  group
              parameter in parallel, but only with a  BPF  filter  attached  as  a  packet  would
              otherwise  need  to  be  delivered to all such capturing processes, instead of only
              once to such a fanout member. Naturally, each fanout member can have  its  own  BPF
              filters attached.

       -K <hash|lb|cpu|rnd|roll|qm>, --fanout-type <hash|lb|cpu|rnd|roll|qm>
              This  parameter  specifies  the fanout discipline, in other words, how the captured
              network traffic  is  dispatched  to  the  fanout  group  members.  Options  are  to
              distribute  traffic by the packet hash (“hash”), in a round-robin manner (“lb”), by
              CPU the packet arrived on (“cpu”), by  random  (“rnd”),  by  rolling  over  sockets
              (“roll”)  which means if one socket's queue is full, we move on to the next one, or
              by NIC hardware queue mapping (“qm”).

       -L <defrag|roll>, --fanout-opts <defrag|roll>
              Defines some auxiliary fanout options to be used in  addition  to  a  given  fanout
              type.   These  options apply to any fanout type. In case of “defrag”, the kernel is
              being told to defragment packets  before  delivering  to  user  space,  and  “roll”
              provides  the  same  roll-over  option  as  the  “roll” fanout type, so that on any
              different fanout type being used (e.g. “qm”) the socket may temporarily  roll  over
              to the next fanout group member in case the original one's queue is full.

       -f, --filter <bpf-file|-|expr>
              Specifies to not dump all traffic, but to filter the network packet haystack.  As a
              filter, either a bpfc(8) compiled file/stdin can be passed  as  a  parameter  or  a
              tcpdump(1)-like  filter  expression  in  quotes. For details regarding the bpf-file
              have a look at bpfc(8), for details regarding a tcpdump(1)-like filter have a  look
              at  section “filter example” or at pcap-filter(7).  A filter expression may also be
              passed to netsniff-ng without option -f in  case  there  is  no  subsequent  option
              following after the command-line filter expression.

       -t, --type <type>
              This  defines  some  sort  of filtering mechanisms in terms of addressing. Possible
              values for type are “host” (to us), “broadcast” (to all), “multicast”  (to  group),
              “others” (promiscuous mode) or “outgoing” (from us).

       -F, --interval <size|time>
              If the output device is a folder, with “-F”, it is possible to define the pcap file
              rotation interval either in terms of size or time. Thus, when  the  interval  limit
              has been reached, a new pcap file will be started. As size parameter, the following
              values  are  accepted  “<num>KiB/MiB/GiB”;   As   time   parameter,   it   can   be
              “<num>s/sec/min/hrs”.

       -J, --jumbo-support
              By default, in pcap replay or redirect mode, netsniff-ng's ring buffer frames are a
              fixed size of 2048 bytes. This means that if you are expecting jumbo frames or even
              super  jumbo  frames  to pass through your network, then you need to enable support
              for that by using this option. However, this has the  disadvantage  of  performance
              degradation  and  a  bigger  memory  footprint  for the ring buffer. Note that this
              doesn't affect (pcap) capturing mode, since tpacket in version 3 is used!

       -R, --rfraw
              In case the input or output networking device is a wireless device, it is  possible
              with  netsniff-ng  to  turn  this into monitor mode and create a mon<X> device that
              netsniff-ng will be listening on instead of wlan<X>, for  instance.   This  enables
              netsniff-ng to analyze, dump, or even replay raw 802.11 frames.

       -n <0|uint>, --num <0|uint>
              Process a number of packets and then exit. If the number of packets is 0, then this
              is equivalent to infinite packets resp. processing until interrupted.  Otherwise, a
              number given as an unsigned integer will limit processing.

       -O <N>, --overwrite <N>
              A  number  from 0 to N-1 will be used in the file name instead of a Unix timestamp.
              The previous file will be overwritten when number wraps around. The  maximum  value
              is 2^32 - 1. Intended for rotating capture files when used with options -F and -P.

       -P <name>, --prefix <name>
              When  dumping pcap files into a folder, a file name prefix can be defined with this
              option. If not otherwise specified, the default prefix is  “dump-”  followed  by  a
              Unix  timestamp.  Use “--prefex ""” to set filename as seconds since the Unix Epoch
              e.g. 1369179203.pcap

       -T <pcap-magic>, --magic <pcap-magic>
              Specify a pcap type for storage. Different pcap types with their various meta  data
              capabilities  are  shown with option -D. If not otherwise specified, the pcap-magic
              0xa1b2c3d4, also known as a standard tcpdump-capable pcap  format,  is  used.  Pcap
              files with swapped endianness are also supported.

       -D, --dump-pcap-types
              Dump all available pcap types with their capabilities and magic numbers that can be
              used with option “-T” to stdout and exit.

       -B, --dump-bpf
              If a Berkeley Packet Filter is given, for example via option “-f”,  then  dump  the
              BPF  disassembly  to  stdout during ring setup. This only serves for informative or
              verification purposes.

       -r, --rand
              If the input and output device are both networking devices, then this  option  will
              randomize packet order in the output ring buffer.

       -M, --no-promisc
              The  networking  interface  will  not  be  put  into  promiscuous mode. By default,
              promiscuous mode is turned on.

       -N, --no-hwtimestamp
              Disable taking hardware time stamps for RX packets.  By  default,  if  the  network
              device  supports hardware time stamping, the hardware time stamps will be used when
              writing packets to pcap files.  This  option  disables  this  behavior  and  forces
              (kernel  based)  software  time stamps to be used, even if hardware time stamps are
              available.

       -A, --no-sock-mem
              On startup and shutdown, netsniff-ng  tries  to  increase  socket  read  and  write
              buffers if appropriate. This option will prevent netsniff-ng from doing so.

       -m, --mmap
              Use mmap(2) as pcap file I/O. This is the default when replaying pcap files.

       -G, --sg
              Use scatter-gather as pcap file I/O. This is the default when capturing pcap files.

       -c, --clrw
              Use  slower read(2) and write(2) I/O. This is not the default case anywhere, but in
              some situations it could be preferred as it has a lower latency  on  write-back  to
              disc.

       -S <size>, --ring-size <size>
              Manually  define  the RX_RING resp. TX_RING size in “<num>KiB/MiB/GiB”. By default,
              the size is determined based on the network connectivity rate.

       -k <uint>, --kernel-pull <uint>
              Manually define the interval in micro-seconds where the kernel should be  triggered
              to  batch  process the ring buffer frames. By default, it is every 10us, but it can
              manually be prolonged, for instance.

       -b <cpu>, --bind-cpu <cpu>
              Pin netsniff-ng to a specific CPU and also pin resp.  migrate  the  NIC's  IRQ  CPU
              affinity  to  this  CPU.  This option should be preferred in combination with -s in
              case a middle to high packet rate is expected.

       -u <uid>, --user <uid> resp. -g <gid>, --group <gid>
              After ring setup drop privileges to a non-root user/group combination.

       -H, --prio-high
              Set this process as a high priority process in order to achieve a higher scheduling
              rate  resp.  CPU time. This is however not the default setting, since it could lead
              to starvation of other processes, for example low priority kernel threads.

       -Q, --notouch-irq
              Do not reassign the NIC's IRQ CPU affinity settings.

       -s, --silent
              Do not enter the packet dissector at all and do not print any packet information to
              the  terminal.  Just  shut  up  and  be  silent. This option should be preferred in
              combination with pcap recording or replay, since it will not  flood  your  terminal
              which causes a significant performance degradation.

       -q, --less
              Print a less verbose one-line information for each packet to the terminal.

       -X, --hex
              Only dump packets in hex format to the terminal.

       -l, --ascii
              Only display ASCII printable characters.

       -U, --update
              If geographical IP location is used, the built-in database update mechanism will be
              invoked to get  Maxmind's  latest  database.  To  configure  search  locations  for
              databases,  the file /etc/netsniff-ng/geoip.conf contains possible addresses. Thus,
              to save bandwidth or for mirroring of Maxmind's databases (to bypass their  traffic
              limit  policy),  different  hosts  or  IP  addresses can be placed into geoip.conf,
              separated by a newline.

       -w, --cooked
              Replace each frame link header with Linux "cooked"  header  [3]  which  keeps  info
              about  link  type  and protocol. It allows to dump and dissect frames captured from
              different link types when -i "any" was specified, for example.

       -V, --verbose
              Be more verbose during startup i.e. show detailed ring setup information.

       -v, --version
              Show version information and exit.

       -h, --help
              Show user help and exit.

USAGE EXAMPLE

       netsniff-ng
              The most simple command is to just run “netsniff-ng”. This will start listening  on
              all  available networking devices in promiscuous mode and dump the packet dissector
              output to the terminal. No files will be recorded.

       netsniff-ng --in eth0 --out dump.pcap -s -T 0xa1e2cb12 -b 0 tcp or udp
              Capture TCP or UDP traffic from the networking device eth0 into the pcap file named
              dump.pcap, which has netsniff-ng specific pcap extensions (see “netsniff-ng -D” for
              capabilities). Also, do not print the content to the terminal and pin  the  process
              and NIC IRQ affinity to CPU 0. The pcap write method is scatter-gather I/O.

       netsniff-ng --in wlan0 --rfraw --out dump.pcap --silent --bind-cpu 0
              Put  the  wlan0  device into monitoring mode and capture all raw 802.11 frames into
              the file dump.pcap. Do not dissect and print the content to the  terminal  and  pin
              the  process and NIC IRQ affinity to CPU 0. The pcap write method is scatter-gather
              I/O.

       netsniff-ng --in dump.pcap --mmap --out eth0 -k1000 --silent --bind-cpu 0
              Replay the pcap file dump.pcap which is read  through  mmap(2)  I/O  and  send  the
              packets out via the eth0 networking device. Do not dissect and print the content to
              the terminal and pin the process and NIC IRQ affinity to CPU 0.  Also, trigger  the
              kernel  every  1000us  to traverse the TX_RING instead of every 10us. Note that the
              pcap magic type is detected automatically from the pcap file header.

       netsniff-ng --in eth0 --out eth1 --silent --bind-cpu 0 --type host -r
              Redirect network traffic from the networking device eth0 to eth1 for  traffic  that
              is destined for our host, thus ignore broadcast, multicast and promiscuous traffic.
              Randomize the order of packets for the outgoing device and do not print any  packet
              contents to the terminal. Also, pin the process and NIC IRQ affinity to CPU 0.

       netsniff-ng --in team0 --out /opt/probe/ -s -m --interval 100MiB -b 0
              Capture  on  an  aggregated  team0 networking device and dump packets into multiple
              pcap files that are split into 100MiB each. Use mmap(2) I/O as a pcap write method,
              support  for  super jumbo frames is built-in (does not need to be configured here),
              and do not print the captured data to the terminal.  Pin netsniff-ng  and  NIC  IRQ
              affinity  to  CPU  0.  The  default  pcap magic type is 0xa1b2c3d4 (tcpdump-capable
              pcap).

       netsniff-ng --in vlan0 --out dump.pcap -c -u `id -u bob` -g `id -g bob`
              Capture network traffic on device vlan0 into a pcap file called dump.pcap by  using
              normal  read(2),  write(2)  I/O  for the pcap file (slower but less latency). Also,
              after setting up the RX_RING for capture, drop privileges from root to the user and
              group  “bob”. Invoke the packet dissector and print packet contents to the terminal
              for further analysis.

       netsniff-ng --in any --filter http.bpf -B --ascii -V
              Capture from all available networking interfaces and  install  a  low-level  filter
              that  was  previously  compiled  by  bpfc(8)  into http.bpf in order to filter HTTP
              traffic. Super jumbo frame support is automatically enabled and  only  print  human
              readable  packet data to the terminal, and also be more verbose during setup phase.
              Moreover, dump a BPF disassembly of http.bpf.

       netsniff-ng --in dump.pcap --out dump.cfg --silent
              Convert the pcap file dump.pcap into a trafgen(8) configuration file  dump.cfg.  Do
              not print pcap contents to the terminal.

       netsniff-ng -i dump.pcap -f beacon.bpf -o -
              Convert  the  pcap file dump.pcap into a trafgen(8) configuration file and write it
              to stdout. However, do not dump all of its content, but only the  one  that  passes
              the low-level filter for raw 802.11 from beacon.bpf. The BPF engine here is invoked
              in user space inside of netsniff-ng, so Linux extensions are not available.

       cat foo.pcap | netsniff-ng -i - -o -
              Read a pcap file from stdin and convert it into a trafgen(8) configuration file  to
              stdout.

       netsniff-ng -i nlmon0 -o dump.pcap -s
              Capture  netlink  traffic  to  a pcap file. This command needs a netlink monitoring
              device to be set up beforehand using the follwing commands  using  ip(1)  from  the
              iproute2 utility collection:

                modprobe nlmon
                ip link add type nlmon
                ip link set nlmon0 up

              To tear down the nlmon0 device, use the following commands:

                ip link set nlmon0 down
                ip link del dev nlmon0
                rmmod nlmon

       netsniff-ng   --fanout-group   1  --fanout-type  cpu  --fanout-opts  defrag  --bind-cpu  0
       --notouch-irq --silent --in em1 --out /var/cap/cpu0/ --interval 120sec
              Start two netsniff-ng fanout instances. Both are  assigned  into  the  same  fanout
              group  membership  and traffic is splitted among them by incoming cpu. Furthermore,
              the kernel is supposed to defragment possible incoming fragments. First instance is
              assigned to CPU 0 and the second one to CPU 1, IRQ bindings are not altered as they
              might have been adapted to this scenario by  the  user  a-priori,  and  traffic  is
              captured  on  interface  em1, and written out in 120 second intervals as pcap files
              into /var/cap/cpu0/. Tools like mergecap(1) will be able to merge the cpu0/1  split
              back together if needed.

CONFIG FILES

       Files under /etc/netsniff-ng/ can be modified to extend netsniff-ng's functionality:

           * oui.conf - OUI/MAC vendor database
           * ether.conf - Ethernet type descriptions
           * tcp.conf - TCP port/services map
           * udp.conf - UDP port/services map
           * geoip.conf - GeoIP database mirrors

FILTER EXAMPLE

       netsniff-ng  supports  both,  low-level  and  high-level  filters that are attached to its
       packet(7) socket. Low-level filters are described in the bpfc(8) man page.

       Low-level filters can be used with netsniff-ng in the following way:

           1. bpfc foo > bar
           2. netsniff-ng -f bar
           3. bpfc foo | netsniff-ng -i nlmon0 -f -

       Here, foo is the bpfc  program  that  will  be  translated  into  a  netsniff-ng  readable
       “opcodes” file and passed to netsniff-ng through the -f option.

       Similarly,  high-level  filter can be either passed through the -f option, e.g. -f "tcp or
       udp" or at the end of all options without the “-f”.

       The filter syntax is the same as in tcpdump(8), which is described in the man  page  pcap-
       filter(7).  Just to quote some examples:

       host sundown
              To select all packets arriving at or departing from sundown.

       host helios and (hot or ace)
              To select traffic between helios and either hot or ace.

       ip host ace and not helios
              To select all IP packets between ace and any host except helios.

       net ucb-ether
              To select all traffic between local hosts and hosts at Berkeley.

       gateway snup and (port ftp or ftp-data)
              To select all FTP traffic through Internet gateway snup.

       ip and not net localnet
              To  select traffic neither sourced from, nor destined for, local hosts. If you have
              a gateway to another network, this traffic should never make  it  onto  your  local
              network.

       tcp[tcpflags] & (tcp-syn|tcp-fin) != 0 and not src and dst net localnet
              To  select  the  start  and  end  packets  (the  SYN  and  FIN packets) of each TCP
              conversation that involve a non-local host.

       tcp port 80 and (((ip[2:2] - ((ip[0]&0xf)<<2)) - ((tcp[12]&0xf0)>>2)) != 0)
              To select all IPv4 HTTP packets to and from port 80, that is  to  say,  print  only
              packets  that  contain  data,  not,  for  example, SYN and FIN packets and ACK-only
              packets.  (IPv6 is left as an exercise for the reader.)

       gateway snup and ip[2:2] > 576
              To select IP packets longer than 576 bytes sent through gateway snup.

       ether[0] & 1 = 0 and ip[16] >= 224
              To select IP broadcast or  multicast  packets  that  were  not  sent  via  Ethernet
              broadcast or multicast.

       icmp[icmptype] != icmp-echo and icmp[icmptype] != icmp-echoreply
              To  select  all ICMP packets that are not echo requests or replies (that is to say,
              not "ping" packets).

PCAP FORMATS:

       netsniff-ng supports a couple of pcap formats, visible through ``netsniff-ng -D'':

       tcpdump-capable pcap (default)
              Pcap magic number is encoded as 0xa1b2c3d4 resp. 0xd4c3b2a1. As  packet  meta  data
              this  format  contains  the timeval in microseconds, the original packet length and
              the captured packet length.

       tcpdump-capable pcap with ns resolution
              Pcap magic number is encoded as 0xa1b23c4d resp. 0x4d3cb2a1. As  packet  meta  data
              this format contains the timeval in nanoseconds, the original packet length and the
              captured packet length.

       Alexey Kuznetzov's pcap
              Pcap magic number is encoded as 0xa1b2cd34 resp. 0x34cdb2a1. As  packet  meta  data
              this  format  contains the timeval in microseconds, the original packet length, the
              captured packet length, the interface index (sll_ifindex),  the  packet's  protocol
              (sll_protocol), and the packet type (sll_pkttype).

       netsniff-ng pcap
              Pcap  magic  number  is encoded as 0xa1e2cb12 resp. 0x12cbe2a1. As packet meta data
              this format contains the timeval in nanoseconds, the original  packet  length,  the
              captured   packet   length,   the  timestamp  hw/sw  source,  the  interface  index
              (sll_ifindex), the packet's protocol (sll_protocol), the packet type  (sll_pkttype)
              and the hardware type (sll_hatype).

       For  further  implementation details or format support in your application, have a look at
       pcap_io.h in the netsniff-ng sources.

NOTE

       To avoid confusion, it should be noted that there  is  another  network  analyzer  with  a
       similar name, called NetSniff, that is unrelated to the netsniff-ng project.

       For  introducing  bit errors, delays with random variation and more while replaying pcaps,
       make use of tc(8) with its disciplines such as netem.

       netsniff-ng does only some basic, architecture generic  tuning  on  startup.  If  you  are
       considering  to  do  high  performance capturing, you need to carefully tune your machine,
       both hardware and software.  Simply letting netsniff-ng run without  thinking  about  your
       underlying system might not necessarily give you the desired performance. Note that tuning
       your system is always  a  tradeoff  and  fine-grained  balancing  act  (throughput  versus
       latency). You should know what you are doing!

       One  recommendation  for  software-based tuning is tuned(8).  Besides that, there are many
       other things to consider. Just to throw you a few things that you might want to  look  at:
       NAPI networking drivers, tickless kernel, I/OAT DMA engine, Direct Cache Access, RAM-based
       file systems, multi-queues, and many more  things.  Also,  you  might  want  to  read  the
       kernel's  Documentation/networking/scaling.txt  file  regarding  technologies such as RSS,
       RPS, RFS, aRFS and XPS.  Also  check  your  ethtool(8)  settings,  for  example  regarding
       offloading or Ethernet pause frames.

       Moreover, to get a deeper understanding of netsniff-ng internals and how it interacts with
       the        Linux        kernel,        the        kernel        documentation        under
       Documentation/networking/{packet_mmap.txt,   filter.txt,   multiqueue.txt}   might  be  of
       interest.

       How do you sniff in a switched environment? I rudely refer to dSniff's documentation  that
       says:

       The  easiest  route is simply to impersonate the local gateway, stealing client traffic en
       route to some remote destination. Of  course,  the  traffic  must  be  forwarded  by  your
       attacking machine, either by enabling kernel IP forwarding or with a userland program that
       accomplishes the same (fragrouter -B1).

       Several people have reportedly destroyed connectivity on their LAN to the outside world by
       ARP spoofing the gateway, and forgetting to enable IP forwarding on the attacking machine.
       Do not do this. You have been warned.

       A safer option than ARP spoofing would be to use a "port mirror" function if  your  switch
       hardware supports it and if you have access to the switch.

       If  you do not need to dump all possible traffic, you have to consider running netsniff-ng
       with a BPF filter for the ingress path. For that purpose, read the bpfc(8) man page.

       Also, to aggregate multiple NICs that you want to capture on, you  should  consider  using
       team devices, further explained in libteam resp.  teamd(8).

       The  following  netsniff-ng  pcap  magic numbers are compatible with other tools, at least
       tcpdump or Wireshark:

           0xa1b2c3d4 (tcpdump-capable pcap)
           0xa1b23c4d (tcpdump-capable pcap with ns resolution)
           0xa1b2cd34 (Alexey Kuznetzov's pcap)

       Pcap files with different meta data endianness are supported by netsniff-ng as well.

BUGS

       When replaying pcap files, the timing information from the pcap packet header is currently
       ignored.

       Also,  when  replaying  pcap  files,  demultiplexing  traffic  among  multiple  networking
       interfaces does not work. Currently, it is only sent via the interface that  is  given  by
       the --out parameter.

       When  performing  traffic  capture on the Ethernet interface, the pcap file is created and
       packets are received but without a 802.1Q header. When one uses tshark,  all  headers  are
       visible, but netsniff-ng removes 802.1Q headers. Is that normal behavior?

       Yes  and  no.  The  way  VLAN  headers  are  handled in PF_PACKET sockets by the kernel is
       somewhat “problematic” [1]. The problem in the Linux kernel is that some  drivers  already
       handle  VLANs, others do not. Those who handle it can have different implementations, such
       as hardware acceleration and so on.  So in some cases the VLAN tag is even stripped before
       entering  the protocol stack, in some cases probably not. The bottom line is that a "hack"
       was introduced in PF_PACKET so that a VLAN ID is visible in  some  helper  data  structure
       that is accessible from the RX_RING.

       Then  it gets really messy in the user space to artificially put the VLAN header back into
       the right place.  Not  to  mention  the  resulting  performance  implications  on  all  of
       libpcap(3)  tools  since  parts  of  the  packet  need  to  be  copied  for reassembly via
       memmove(3).

       A user reported the following, just to demonstrate this mess: some tests  were  made  with
       two machines, and it seems that results depend on the driver ...

           AR8131:
             ethtool -k eth0 gives "rx-vlan-offload: on"
             - wireshark gets the vlan header
             - netsniff-ng doesn't get the vlan header
             ethtool -K eth0 rxvlan off
             - wireshark gets a QinQ header even though no one sent QinQ
             - netsniff-ng gets the vlan header

           RTL8111/8168B:
             ethtool -k eth0 gives "rx-vlan-offload: on"
             - wireshark gets the vlan header
             - netsniff-ng doesn't get the vlan header
             ethtool -K eth0 rxvlan off
             - wireshark gets the vlan header
             - netsniff-ng doesn't get the vlan header

       Even  if  we  agreed on doing the same workaround as libpcap, we still will not be able to
       see QinQ, for instance, due to the fact that only one VLAN tag is  stored  in  the  kernel
       helper  data structure. We think that there should be a good consensus on the kernel space
       side about what gets transferred to userland first.

       Update (28.11.2012): the Linux kernel and also bpfc(8) has built-in support  for  hardware
       accelerated VLAN filtering, even though tags might not be visible in the payload itself as
       reported here. However, the filtering for VLANs works reliable if your  NIC  supports  it.
       See bpfc(8) for an example.

          [1] http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0710.3/3816.html
          [2] http://www.tcpdump.org/linktypes/LINKTYPE_NETLINK.html
          [3] http://www.tcpdump.org/linktypes/LINKTYPE_LINUX_SLL.html

LEGAL

       netsniff-ng is licensed under the GNU GPL version 2.0.

HISTORY

       netsniff-ng  was originally written for the netsniff-ng toolkit by Daniel Borkmann. Bigger
       contributions were made by Emmanuel Roullit, Markus Amend, Tobias  Klauser  and  Christoph
       Jaeger.  It  is  currently  maintained  by Tobias Klauser <tklauser@distanz.ch> and Daniel
       Borkmann <dborkma@tik.ee.ethz.ch>.

SEE ALSO

       trafgen(8), mausezahn(8), ifpps(8), bpfc(8), flowtop(8), astraceroute(8), curvetun(8)

AUTHOR

       Manpage was written by Daniel Borkmann.

COLOPHON

       This page is part of the Linux netsniff-ng toolkit project. A description of the  project,
       and information about reporting bugs, can be found at http://netsniff-ng.org/.