Gui,
Thanks for your help and quick response.
I believe the information at 
http://analyzer.polito.it/docs/advanced_man/how_to/add_new_lff.htm
Would help us develop the converter. 
2 more question if I may:
1. The new PCAP format allows additional private fields in a TLV format, is 
there a way to do so in the existing format? 
2. Are there any more specification documents you can send me their links?

zemer Margolin
Tel: +972-3765-7571
RADCOM

-----Original Message-----
From: Guy Harris [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 10:46 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [WinPcap-users] Pcap file format

Zemer Margolin wrote:

> I am currently working on a converter that converts captured packets from one
> format to another.

One way to do that might be to contribute to Ethereal:

        http://www.ethereal.com/

code to read the format from which you're converting - Ethereal has a
limited ability to read from some RADCOM captures, but it's very far
from complete.

> Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find any document describing the PCAP file 
> format.
> Not a structure in a programming language, but a specification document.
> The only document I found is 
> http://custom.lab.unb.br/pub/net/libpcap/doc/pcap.html
> But it isn't fully compatible.

Well, the page at

        http://analyzer.polito.it/docs/advanced_man/how_to/add_new_lff.htm

gives libpcap format as an example, although there are a few errors:

        1) "File Length" is actually nominally "Significant Figures", which
would, in theory, be the accuracy of time stamps, but, in practice, it's
always zero and gives no information;

        2) "Future Applications" is actually "Snapshot Length", which is the
maximum number of packet data in any of the records of the file - or a
value greater than or equal to that maximum, and is often 65535 (some
software might use it to allocate a buffer into which to copy the packet
data);

and also:

        1) "Time Zone" is often 0, so it can't be relied on to contain the
offset of the time zone, at the location of the capture, from UTC in
seconds;

        2) "Link Type" shouldn't use the values 11, 12, 13, or 14 - there are
other values that should be used for those purposes - and has some other
values that are available.

Note, however, that the "not fully compatible" format described in the
page you found - or, in a more up-to-date form, at

        http://www.tcpdump.org/pcap/pcap.html

will be used at some point in the future, so code that reads the current
libpcap format won't be able to read all libpcap files in the future.

Note that if you implement code to read the files in question in
Ethereal, code to write libpcap format already exists, and code to write
the new libpcap format will be added in the future, so you won't have to
worry about that.

Also, if it's OK if the application in question uses libpcap/WinPcap, it
could use the libpcap/WinPcap routines to write the capture file.


======================
 This is the WinPcap users list. It is archived at
 http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/

 To unsubscribe use
 mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
======================


================================================================= This is the 
WinPcap users list. It is archived at
 http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/

 To unsubscribe use
 mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
=================================================================

Reply via email to