About
=====
netsniff-ng is a high performance Linux network sniffer for packet
inspection. Basically, it is similar to tcpdump, but it doesn't
need one syscall per packet. Instead, it uses an memory mapped area
within kernelspace for accessing packets without copying them to
userspace (zero-copy mechanism).
This tool is useful for debugging your network, measuring performance
throughput or creating network statistics of incoming packets on
central network nodes like routers or firewalls.
By providing an unix domain socket client, you're able to export
collected data during runtime (e.g. for Nagios).
Some Features
=============
* No usage of libpcap
* High performance
o Zero-Copy mode via memory mapped kernel RX_RING (no syscalls for
packet-fetching as in libpcap)
o No extra callback function for each packet (as in libpcap)
o Short critical path
* Runs in userspace
* Promiscuous Mode support
* Berkeley Packet Filter support
* Unix Domain Socket server for data fetching during sniff
* Predefined filters for some protocols, e.g. possible Skype (UDP probe)
prefiltering (or write your own ones for accessing each byte of the frame)
* VLAN based sniffing possible
* Run it in foreground (e.g. be verbose and print packets) or as a sys daemon
* Support for integration of fetched statistics into Nagios
(check_packets plugin)
Requirements (for your own kernels)
===================================
Your kernel should have been built with CONFIG_PACKET_MMAP=y in order
to use netsniff-ng. This is default on your preinstalled Debian kernel.
Homepage
========
http://code.google.com/p/netsniff-ng/
Support
=======
Join the official support and development mailinglist of netsniff-ng:
Subscribe and send your questions to netsniff-ng@googlegroups.com.
http://groups.google.com/group/netsniff-ng
Contact
=======
For bugs, improvements, cool hacks and all the rest:
* Daniel Borkmann <danborkmann@googlemail.com>
Leipzig University of Applied Science,
Faculty of Computer Science, Mathematics and Natural Sciences
