capinfos(1)
NAME
capinfos - Prints information about capture files
SYNOPSIS
capinfos [ -a ] [ -A ] [ -b ] [ -B ] [ -c ] [ -C ] [ -d ] [ -e ] [ -E ] [ -F ] [ -h ] [ -H ] [ -i ] [ -I ] [ -l ] [ -L ] [ -m ] [ -M ] [ -N ] [ -o ] [ -q ] [ -Q ] [ -r ] [ -R ] [ -s ] [ -S ] [ -t ] [ -T ] [ -u ] [ -v ] [ -x ] [ -y ] [ -z ] <infile> ...
DESCRIPTION
Capinfos is a program that reads one or more capture files and returns some or all available statistics (infos) of each <infile> in one of two types of output formats: long or table. The long output is suitable for a human to read. The table output is useful for generating a report that can be easily imported into a spreadsheet or database. The user specifies what type of output (long or table) and which statistics to display by specifying flags (options) that corresponding to the report type and desired infos. If no options are specified, Capinfos will report all statistics available in "long" format. Options are processed from left to right order with later options superseding or adding to earlier options. Capinfos is able to detect and read the same capture files that are supported by Wireshark. The input files don't need a specific filename extension; the file format and an optional gzip compression will be automatically detected. Near the beginning of the DESCRIPTION section of wireshark(1) or <https://www.wireshark.org/docs/man-pages/wireshark.html> is a detailed description of the way Wireshark handles this, which is the same way Capinfos handles this.
OPTIONS
-a Displays the start time of the capture. Capinfos considers the
earliest timestamp seen to be the start time, so the first packet
in the capture is not necessarily the earliest - if packets exist
"out-of-order", time-wise, in the capture, Capinfos detects this.
-A Generate all infos. By default capinfos will display all infos
values for each input file, but enabling any of the individual
display infos options will disable the generate all option.
-b Separate infos with ASCII SPACE (0x20) characters. This option is
only useful when generating a table style report (-T). The various
info values will be separated (delimited) from one another with a
single ASCII SPACE character.
NOTE: Since some of the header labels as well as some of the value
fields contain SPACE characters. This option is of limited value
unless one of the quoting options (-q or -Q) is also specified.
-B Separate the infos with ASCII TAB characters. This option is only
useful when generating a table style report (-T). The various info
values will be separated (delimited) from one another with a single
ASCII TAB character. The TAB character is the default delimiter
when -T style report is enabled.
-c Displays the number of packets in the capture file.
-C Cancel processing any additional files if and when capinfos should
fail to open an input file. By default capinfos will attempt to
open each and every file name argument.
Note: An error message will be written to stderr whenever capinfos
fails to open a file regardless of whether the -C option is
specified or not. Upon exit, capinfos will return an error status
if any errors occurred during processing.
-d Displays the total length of all packets in the file, in bytes.
This counts the size of the packets as they appeared in their
original form, not as they appear in this file. For example, if a
packet was originally 1514 bytes and only 256 of those bytes were
saved to the capture file (if packets were captured with a snaplen
or other slicing option), Capinfos will consider the packet to have
been 1514 bytes.
-e Displays the end time of the capture. Capinfos considers the
latest timestamp seen to be the end time, so the last packet in the
capture is not necessarily the latest - if packets exist "out-of-
order", time-wise, in the capture, Capinfos detects this.
-E Displays the per-file encapsulation of the capture file.
-F Displays additional capture file information.
-h Prints the help listing and exits.
-H Displays the SHA1, RIPEMD160, and MD5 hashes for the file.
-i Displays the average data rate, in bits/sec
-I Displays detailed capture file interface information. This
information is not available in table format.
-k Displays the capture comment. For pcapng files, this is the comment
from the section header block.
-l Display the snaplen (if any) for a file. snaplen (if available) is
determined from the capture file header and by looking for
truncated records in the capture file.
-L Generate long report. Capinfos can generate two different styles
of reports. The "long" report is the default style of output and
is suitable for a human to use.
-m Separate the infos with comma (,) characters. This option is only
useful when generating a table style report (-T). The various info
values will be separated (delimited) from one another with a single
comma "," character.
-M Print raw (machine readable) numeric values in long reports. By
default capinfos prints human-readable values with SI suffixes.
Table reports (-T) always print raw values.
-N Do not quote the infos. This option is only useful when generating
a table style report (-T). Excluding any quoting characters around
the various values and using a TAB delimiter produces a very
"clean" table report that is easily parsed with CLI tools. By
default infos are NOT quoted.
-o Displays "True" if packets exist in strict chronological order or
"False" if one or more packets in the capture exists "out-of-order"
time-wise.
-q Quote infos with single quotes ('). This option is only useful when
generating a table style report (-T). When this option is enabled,
each value will be encapsulated within a pair of single quote (')
characters. This option (when used with the -m option) is useful
for generating one type of CSV style file report.
-Q Quote infos with double quotes ("). This option is only useful
when generating a table style report (-T). When this option is
enabled, each value will be encapsulated within a pair of double
quote (") characters. This option (when used with the -m option)
is useful for generating the most common type of CSV style file
report.
-r Do not generate header record. This option is only useful when
generating a table style report (-T). If this option is specified
then no header record will be generated within the table report.
-R Generate header record. This option is only useful when generating
a table style report (-T). A header is generated by default. A
header record (if generated) is the first line of data reported and
includes labels for all the columns included within the table
report.
-s Displays the size of the file, in bytes. This reports the size of
the capture file itself.
-S Display the start and end times as seconds since January 1, 1970.
Handy for synchronizing dumps using editcap -t.
-t Displays the capture type of the capture file.
-T Generate a table report. A table report is a text file that is
suitable for importing into a spreadsheet or database. Capinfos
can build a tab delimited text file (the default) or several
variations on Comma-separated values (CSV) files.
-u Displays the capture duration, in seconds. This is the difference
in time between the earliest packet seen and latest packet seen.
-v Displays the tool's version and exits.
-x Displays the average packet rate, in packets/sec
-y Displays the average data rate, in bytes/sec
-z Displays the average packet size, in bytes
EXAMPLES
To see a description of the capinfos options use:
capinfos -h
To generate a long form report for the capture file mycapture.pcap use:
capinfos mycapture.pcap
To generate a TAB delimited table form report for the capture file
mycapture.pcap use:
capinfos -T mycapture.pcap
To generate a CSV style table form report for the capture file
mycapture.pcap use:
capinfos -T -m -Q mycapture.pcap
or
capinfos -TmQ mycapture.pcap
To generate a TAB delimited table style report with just the filenames,
capture type, capture encapsulation type and packet count for all the
pcap files in the current directory use:
capinfos -T -t -E -c *.pcap
or
capinfos -TtEs *.pcap
Note: The ability to use of filename globbing characters are a feature
of *nix style command shells.
To generate a CSV delimited table style report of all infos for all
pcap files in the current directory and write it to a text file called
mycaptures.csv use:
capinfos -TmQ *.pcap >mycaptures.csv
The resulting mycaptures.csv file can be easily imported into
spreadsheet applications.
SEE ALSO
pcap(3), wireshark(1), mergecap(1), editcap(1), tshark(1), dumpcap(1), pcap-filter(7) or tcpdump(8)
NOTES
Capinfos is part of the Wireshark distribution. The latest version of Wireshark can be found at <https://www.wireshark.org>. HTML versions of the Wireshark project man pages are available at: <https://www.wireshark.org/docs/man-pages>.
AUTHORS
Original Author
-------- ------
Ian Schorr <ian[AT]ianschorr.com>
Contributors
------------
Gerald Combs <gerald[AT]wireshark.org>
Jim Young <jyoung[AT]gsu.edu>
Opportunity
Personal Opportunity - Free software gives you access to billions of dollars of software at no cost. Use this software for your business, personal use or to develop a profitable skill. Access to source code provides access to a level of capabilities/information that companies protect though copyrights. Open source is a core component of the Internet and it is available to you. Leverage the billions of dollars in resources and capabilities to build a career, establish a business or change the world. The potential is endless for those who understand the opportunity.
Business Opportunity - Goldman Sachs, IBM and countless large corporations are leveraging open source to reduce costs, develop products and increase their bottom lines. Learn what these companies know about open source and how open source can give you the advantage.
Free Software
Free Software provides computer programs and capabilities at no cost but more importantly, it provides the freedom to run, edit, contribute to, and share the software. The importance of free software is a matter of access, not price. Software at no cost is a benefit but ownership rights to the software and source code is far more significant.
Free Office Software - The Libre Office suite provides top desktop productivity tools for free. This includes, a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation engine, drawing and flowcharting, database and math applications. Libre Office is available for Linux or Windows.
Free Books
The Free Books Library is a collection of thousands of the most popular public domain books in an online readable format. The collection includes great classical literature and more recent works where the U.S. copyright has expired. These books are yours to read and use without restrictions.
Source Code - Want to change a program or know how it works? Open Source provides the source code for its programs so that anyone can use, modify or learn how to write those programs themselves. Visit the GNU source code repositories to download the source.
Education
Study at Harvard, Stanford or MIT - Open edX provides free online courses from Harvard, MIT, Columbia, UC Berkeley and other top Universities. Hundreds of courses for almost all major subjects and course levels. Open edx also offers some paid courses and selected certifications.
Linux Manual Pages - A man or manual page is a form of software documentation found on Linux/Unix operating systems. Topics covered include computer programs (including library and system calls), formal standards and conventions, and even abstract concepts.
