A few others and myself have been working on a new project to wrap
libpcap functions with native bindings to allow network packet capture
in Java applications.

I'd like to thank all of the libpcap developers for this great library
and get feedback from anyone interested in looking at our project. Your
comments are appreciated.


The project is called jpcap and is hosted on sourceforge at 
http://www.sf.net/projects/jpcap.

In addition to wrapping libpcap, we've written a packet/protocol library
and some sample tools to capture and visualize captured network traffic.
Some screenshots are at http://jpcap.sf.net.


I'll summarize some of the features of jpcap.

  o The libpcap wrapper maps system and pcap data structures
    into corresponding Java objects. 

  o Errors occurring at the pcap layer are transmitted into 
    the calling application as catchable Java exceptions.

  o jpcap uses a packet event notification model where clients 
    interested in receiving packets implement a specified packet 
    handling interface and then register with the packet capture
    system for notifications.

  o Two different packet handling interfaces are supported: 
    a raw packet interface where registered listeners receive 
    raw packet byte data and a higher level interface where the 
    data is abstracted and registered listeners receive packet
    objects like 'TCPPacket' or 'ICMPPacket'.

  o The system contains a hierarchical and inheritance based 
    packet/protocol family tree. Currently supported are:

      Packet
        EthernetPacket
          ARPPacket
          IPPacket
            ICMPPacket
            TCPPacket
            UDPPacket

    Clients registered with the higher level capture interface
    receive instances of these packet objects.

  o The capture system contains a packet factory which 
    decodes different protocols and instantiates the most 
    specific instance of a packet recognized.

  o A simulator which implements an interface identical to 
    the capture system is being developed.
    Rather than capture packet data off the wire, the 
    simulator fabricates packets based on configurable 
    policies. This is useful for developing applications in an 
    environment where the user has no network interfaces or 
    when the developer wants control over the frequency and 
    type of packets received.



thanks,
-pat

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