Skip to main content
Yanked

This release has been yanked by its maintainers, and will be ignored by installers, except when explicitly specified.
Consider using release 1.11.0b29 instead.
Reason given by maintainers: Obsolete

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:

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 <libpcap@ee.lbl.gov>

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:

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
Please refer to the accompanying LICENSE file.

Authors

Changelog

1.11.0b13 (2024-10-20)

  • Fix for improper use of ctypes.cdll.msvcrt._get_osfhandle.
    Has been replaced by msvcrt.get_osfhandle.
    Thank you very much crackevil@Github for the fix!
  • Setup unification and (dependencies) update.

1.11.0b12 (2024-10-09)

  • Setup (dependencies) update.

1.11.0b11 (2024-09-30)

  • Drop support for Python 3.8

  • Upgrade to the latest libpcap API 1.11.0-PRE

  • Sync/upgrade of tests to the latest libpcap API 1.11.0-PRE

  • Setup (dependencies) update.

1.11.0b10 (2024-08-13)

  • Add support for Python 3.13

  • Improvements and cleanup for win32.

  • Source code refactoring and cleanup.

  • Setup (dependencies) update.

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.

Release files for libpcap 1.11.0b13

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for libpcap 1.11.0b13
File Size Uploaded
libpcap-1.11.0b13.zip 913.3 kB Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for libpcap 1.11.0b13
File Interpreter ABI Platform
libpcap-1.11.0b13-py3-none-any.whl Python 3 none any Details

Total release size: 1.8 MB

Release files / libpcap-1.11.0b13.zip

Download URL libpcap-1.11.0b13.zip
Size 913.3 kB
Tags Source
SHA-256 checksum
How to use checksums
44bfff51ae7debc7c6d56f912ca24fddc9d71f62e138eb303e4f148014efe13e
BLAKE2b-256 checksum
How to use checksums
d8e85be45e3a50300bb84add41ad9d6dd8889e0f75be761e566558676bef2e7f
Upload date
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing?
What is trusted publishing?
No
Uploaded via twine/5.1.1 CPython/3.12.7

Release files / libpcap-1.11.0b13-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL libpcap-1.11.0b13-py3-none-any.whl
Size 850.6 kB
Tags Python 3
SHA-256 checksum
How to use checksums
b7bc93bac9c13a6713c2ccc8da0d27874ced748bf6d0ffc9d528d1af0d777276
BLAKE2b-256 checksum
How to use checksums
d701ceafb483084207252ceae9b4d6b3ceb351f22dd91e00bc3569cc009e7c3e
Upload date
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing?
What is trusted publishing?
No
Uploaded via twine/5.1.1 CPython/3.12.7

Release history Release notifications | RSS feed

This release

1.11.0b13 This release

2 release files

Anthropic, PBC Visionary sponsor Bloomberg Visionary sponsor Hudson River Trading Visionary sponsor Meta Visionary sponsor NVIDIA Visionary sponsor Microsoft Sustainability sponsor Depot Continuous Integration AWS Cloud computing and Security Sponsor Datadog Monitoring Fastly CDN Google Download Analytics Sentry Error logging StatusPage Status page