Open Source Packet Capture Libraries

libpcap

libpcap is 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.

winpcap

WinPcap is the industry-standard tool for link-layer network access in Windows environments: it allows applications to capture and transmit network packets bypassing the protocol stack, and has additional useful features, including kernel-level packet filtering, a network statistics engine and support for remote packet capture. All well known open source networking tools like Ethereal, ntop, nmap, snort and windump use winpcap.

jpcap

A Java wrapper for both winpcap and libpcap programming libraries.

net::pcap

A perl wrapper for the libpcap library.

Win32::NetPacket

An object oriented perl wrapper for the winpcap library.

pcapy

A python wrapper library for both libpcap and winpcap.

vb.pcap

A Visual Basic (VB) wrapper for the winpcap library.

libnet

A packet injection engine for both *nix and windows.