stanleysathler/linux-packet-sniffer

:link: • A toy network packet sniffer. Built with Linux sockets. CLI based on tcpdump. Linux-only.

Packet Sniffer

What is a Packet Sniffer?

A Packet Sniffer is a program that intercepts the network traffic passing through network interfaces (such as a network board), logging every byte passed through the network.

Packet Sniffers are pretty useful specially for network analyzing and monitoring, and they are often used by network administrators and security specialists.

The most famous Packet Sniffers on the market are Wireshark and tcpdump.

Can I use it professionally?

I wouldn't recommend this. 😞

This was created for learning purposes, to learn more about network protocols and sockets. It's unstable, won't receive updates, and misses lots of features.

Can I contribute?

Please, be my guest! 🚀

This is the main purpose of this project: help students to build their own. Or at least to help them understand how they work. I'm also learning, so I'm pretty sure new PRs can still teach me a lot.

I made an effort to keep the code as simple as possible. Still, if you feel the readability could be improved to make it more friendly, feel free to open a PR. Also, if you feel comfortable to implement a fresh new feature here, you are also welcome. 💎

If you need any help to understand this code, you can contact me at [email protected].

linux-packet-sniffer's Issues

Consider incoming UDP datagrams

Currently the Packet Sniffer only captures TCP segments. It would be great if we could also capture incoming UDP datagrams as well.

It follows the same idea behind TCP: each datagram has a specific structure, where each bit (or group of bits) represent a specific information.

Initially it doesn't need to be a complex implementation. Only the most basic fields are enough. Remember: this is a project for learning purposes - we don't need to consider edge cases or implement complex logic. We can have "bugs" or incomplete features, it's okay.