ANNOUNCEMENT: Live Wireshark University & Allegro Packets online APAC Wireshark Training Session
April 17th, 2024 | 14:30-16:00 SGT (UTC+8) | Online

Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] How to make libpcap/wiretap understand proprietry/standard l

From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 10:04:37 -0700

On Sep 18, 2008, at 3:08 AM, Gaurav1 Jain wrote:

I want to understand how libpcap identifies a particular data link layer?

As indicated, this is more of a tcpdump-workers@xxxxxxxxxxx question, as it's a libpcap question.

Currently we are tapping IP interfaces using WireShark where there could be either HDLC or Transparent traffic without IP header attached to it.

"Without IP header attached to it"? Do you mean that there's no data link layer header *or* IP header, so that the packet begins with an ICMP/UDP/TCP/SCTP/etc. header? Or do you mean that there's no data link layer header but there *is* an IP header, so the packet begins with an IP header?

I assume, from your other mail, that this is on Linux.

Are those "interfaces" regular network interfaces (so that libpcap captures on them the same way it captures on, for example, Ethernet or 802.11 interfaces), or have you added a new interface type to libpcap?