Build From Source on Windows - Visual Studio

Please visit the supported platforms page to see the Visual Studio versions currently supported in PcapPlusPlus.

Prerequisites

In order to build PcapPlusPlus on Windows with Visual Studio you need the following components:

1. A supported version of Microsoft Visual Studio

2. CMake which can be installed from: https://cmake.org/install/ or with pacman if using MSYS2: pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-cmake

3. OPTIONAL If you want to use WinPcap/Npcap features such as packet capture and have -DPCAPPP_USE_PCAP=ON:

   1. Download and install WinPcap OR Npcap on your system

      Note for Npcap:

      If you install Npcap please check the Install Npcap in WinPcap API-compatilbility mode option during installation:

      

   2. Download and install WinPcap developer's pack OR Npcap SDK - containing the wpcap library PcapPlusPlus is linking with plus relevant h files.

4. In some cases you also need to download and install:

   1. Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for your version of Visual Studio
   2. Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable

5. OPTIONAL - download Zstd libraries if you wish to enable PCAPNG streaming compression support

Build

Assuming you want to build PcapPlusPlus into a build directory:

With WinPcap/Npcap support:

cmake -DPCAP_ROOT=<NpcapSDK_or_WinPcapDevPack_Directory> -S . -B build

Without WinPcap/Npcap support:

cmake -DPCAPPP_USE_PCAP=OFF -S . -B build

You can use the following CMake options to determine specific parameters:

• To build for a specific (non-default) version of Visual Studio you can use the -G option, for example -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" will builf for VS 2019
• To build for a specific platform you can use the -A option, for example: -A x64 or -A Win32

This will create a VS Solution file in the build directory: build\PcapPlusPlus.sln and multiple VS project files .vcxproj.

This solution file contains all the projects required to build the PcapPlusPlus libraries, examples, and tests. In this solution you'll find the ALL_BUILD project that builds everything.

There are multiple options to build PcapPlusPlus:

• Use CMake and choose the configuration:

  cmake --build build --config Release

• Open Visual Studio, choose platform and configuration and build the ALL_BUILD project
• Use MSBuild and choose the platform and configuration, for example:

  msbuild PcapPlusPlus.sln -target:ALL_BUILD /p:Configuration=Release /p:Platform=x64

After a successful build the following artifacts will be created:

• PcapPlusPlus libs:
  • build\Common++\<Debug/Release>\libCommon++.a
  • build\Packet++\<Debug/Release>\libPacket++.a
  • build\Pcap++\<Debug/Release>\libPcap++.a
• PcapPlusPlus examples binaries under build\examples_bin\<Debug/Release>
• PcapPlusPlus tests:
  • <PcapPlusPlus_Dir>\Tests\Packet++Test\Bin\Packet++Test.exe
  • <PcapPlusPlus_Dir>\Tests\Pcap++Test\Bin\Pcap++Test.exe

The following configuration options are available (on top of CMake's built-in options):

Option	Description
-DPCAPPP_USE_PCAP=<ON/OFF>	Build PcapPlusPlus with WinPcap/Npcap support (default value is ON)
-DPCAP_ROOT=<DIR>	Npcap SDK or WinPcap developer pack directory (mandatory option if -DPCAPPP_USE_PCAP=ON)
-DPCAPPP_BUILD_EXAMPLES=<ON/OFF>	Build PcapPlusPlus examples (default value is ON if building the project itself, otherwise OFF)
-DPCAPPP_BUILD_TESTS=<ON/OFF>	Build PcapPlusPlus tests (default value is ON if building the project itself, otherwise OFF)
-DPCAPPP_BUILD_TUTORIALS=<ON/OFF>	Build PcapPlusPlus tutorials. This option is only available if DPCAPPP_BUILD_EXAMPLES=ON. The tutorials binaries will be under build\tutorials_bin (default value is OFF)
-DPCAPPP_INSTALL=<ON/OFF>	Install PcapPlusPlus (default value is ON if building the project itself, otherwise OFF)
-DPCAPPP_USE_WINDIVERT=<ON/OFF>	Setup PcapPlusPlus with WinDivert (default value is OFF). When this option is used CMake will look for an installed version of WinDivert on the build machine (by default under C:\Program Files\WinDivert or C:\WinDivert). If WinDivert is installed in a different directory please use -DWinDivert_ROOT
-DWinDivert_ROOT=<DIR>	When setting up PcapPlusPlus with WinDivert and WinDivert is not installed in the default directory (under C:\Program Files\WinDivert or C:\WinDivert) use this option to indicate WinDivert installation directory
-DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=<ON/OFF>	Build shared libs (default value is OFF)
-DPCAPPP_BUILD_PCAPPP=<ON/OFF>	Build the Pcap++ library (default value is ON). Turning it off will only build Common++ and Packet++ and avoid third-party dependencies such as libpcap or WinPcap/Npcap
-DPCAPPP_LOG_LEVEL=<0/1/2/3>	Set compile time log level: Off (0), Error (1), Info (2), Debug (1) (Default value is Debug)

Installation

Windows doesn't have a default install directory, but you may want to see all libs, header files and examples under one directory (which is not the build directory). Here is how to acheive that:

set DESTDIR=<DIR>
cmake --install build --prefix "/"

Running tests

PcapPlusPlus contains a set of test-cases you can run to make sure that everything works correctly on your system. This guide contains detailed instructions on how to run them.