Downloading & Building PcapPlusPlus

Table Of Contents

Download Source Code

Download Binaries From Package Managers

Homebrew (MacOS only)

PcapPlusPlus is available in Homebrew on MacOs:

brew install pcapplusplus

Conan (Windows, Linux, MacOs)

PcapPlusPlus Conan package is available in Bintray and is managed by the Bincrafters team:

conan remote add public-conan https://api.bintray.com/conan/bincrafters/public-conan
conan install pcapplusplus/18.08@bincrafters/stable -r public-conan

Download Binaries From Release Page

PcapPlusPlus binaries for specific platforms are also available in the releases page in GitHub project home.

Currently the latest release is August 2018 Release (18.08)

Package Content

The PcapPlusPlus package contains several libraries, unit-tests and example utilities:

  • Packet++ - a library for parsing, creating and editing packets of various supported protocols. This library can be used stand-alone and doesn't depend on Pcap++, libpcap/WinPcap, etc.
  • Pcap++ - a library for intercepting and sending packets, providing network and NIC info, stats, etc. This library is actually a C++ wrapper for packet capturing engines such as libpcap, WinPcap, DPDK and PF_RING
  • Common++ - a library containing common code utilities used by both Packet++ and Pcap++
  • Example applications: see Examples page
  • Unit-tests:
    • Packet++Test - a unit-test application for testing Packet++
    • Pcap++Test - a unit-test application for testing Pcap++

Building PcapPlusPlus - Windows (Visual Studio 2015)

Prerequisites

In order to build PcapPlusPlus on Windows with Visual Studio 2015 you need the following components:

  1. Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 (can be downloaded from here: https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/)
  2. Winpcap developer's pack - containing the wpcap library PcapPlusPlus is linking with plus relevant h files. You can download it from https://www.winpcap.org/devel.htm
  3. pthread-win32 - can be downloaded from here: ftp://sourceware.org/pub/pthreads-win32/pthreads-w32-2-9-1-release.zip
Configuration and compilation
  1. run the configure-windows-visual-studio.bat batch file from PcapPlusPlus main directory. The script will ask you for the locations of WinPcap developer's pack and pthreads-win32. The script will modify mk\vs2015\PcapPlusPlusPropertySheet.props file with these locations
  2. PcapPlusPlus contains 3 Visual Studio solutions:
    • mk\vs2015\PcapPlusPlus.sln - contains PcapPlusPlus libraries (Common++, Packet++ and Pcap++) and unit-tests projects
    • mk\vs2015\PcapPlusPlus-Examples.sln - contains all PcapPlusPlus examples. Requires PcapPlusPlus.sln to be built
    • mk\vs2015\Tutorials.sln - contains all PcapPlusPlus tutorial examples. Requires PcapPlusPlus.sln to be built
  3. All solutions support both 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) configurations as well as Debug and Release modes. So actually 4 modes are supported: x86|Debug, x86|Release, x64|Debug, x64|Release

Building PcapPlusPlus - Windows (MinGW32 + MinGW-w64)

Prerequisites

In order to compile PcapPlusPlus on Windows using MinGW32 or MinGW-w64 you need the following components:

  1. MinGW32 or MinGW-w64 environment and compiler
    • Download and installation instructions for MinGW32:
      • The fastest way I found for installing mingw32 was through this link: http://www.mingw.org/wiki/Getting_Started
      • Download "mingw-get-setup.exe", run it and follow the instructions
      • By default the pthreads library is not installed so you need to ask to install it. It can be done during the installation process or afterwards with "mingw-get.exe" (MinGW installation manager)
      • In the MinGW installation manager search for all packages containing "pthreads" and mark them for installation. Make sure the pthreads-win32 version you install is 2.10 or later
      • Choose Installation->Update Catalogue
      • If you prefer to install pthreads manually please follow these steps:
        • Download pthreads for MinGW
        • Extract it with 7-Zip: 7z.exe e pthreads-GC-w32-2.10-mingw32-pre-20160821-1-dev.tar.xz -oC:\pthreads && 7z.exe x C:\pthreads\pthreads-GC-w32-2.10-mingw32-pre-20160821-1-dev.tar -oC:\pthreads
        • Copy the include files to MinGW folder: xcopy /Y C:\pthreads\include\* C:\MinGW\include
        • Copy the lib files to MinGW folder: xcopy /Y C:\pthreads\lib\* C:\MinGW\lib
    • Download and installation instructions for MinGW-w64:
      • Download and run mingw-w64 installer from here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64/
      • Make sure that the installation path doesn't contain spaces (otherwise PcapPlusPlus compilation may fail)
      • Make sure to choose the i686 option (which is 32-bit). PcapPlusPlus doesn't support MinGW-w64 64-bit (x86_64)
      • Make sure to choose POSIX threads and not win32 threads
      • Follow the instruction in the installation wizard
      • Install MSYS or MSYS2. MSYS2 installer can be downloaded from here: http://msys2.github.io/
      • Make sure to download and install the msys2-i686 installer and not the msys2-x86_64 installer
      • Add the following folders to your PATH environment variable:
        • The MinGW-w64 folder that cotains g++.exe, mingw32-make, etc. It should be under [MinGW-w64_install_folder]\mingw32\bin, for example: C:\mingw-w64\i686-8.1.0-posix-dwarf-rt_v6-rev0\mingw32\bin
        • The MSYS2 usr\bin folder, for example: C:\msys32\usr\bin
  2. Winpcap developer's pack - containing the wpcap library PcapPlusPlus is linking with plus relevant h files. You can download it from https://www.winpcap.org/devel.htm
Configuration and compilation
  1. Please notice that x64 compilation is not supported (and will not work) on either MinGW32 nor MinGW-w64!
  2. Run the configure-windows-mingw.bat batch file from PcapPlusPlus main directory. The script will ask you for WinPcap developer's pack location and MinGW location. For MinGW-w64 please make sure to set the mingw32\i686-w64-mingw32 folder, for example: C:\mingw-w64\i686-8.1.0-posix-dwarf-rt_v6-rev0\mingw32\i686-w64-mingw32
  3. Run mingw32-make.exe all from PcapPlusPlus main directory
  4. This should compile all libraries, unit-tests and examples
  5. After compilation you can find the libraries, examples, header files and helpful makefiles under the Dist\ directory

Building PcapPlusPlus - Linux

Prerequisites

In order to compile PcapPlusPlus on Linux you need the following components:

  1. libpcap developers pack - containing the libpcap library PcapPlusPlus is linking with plus relevant header files. You can download it from http://www.tcpdump.org/#latest-release or through package management engines such as apt-get/yum: 
    sudo apt-get install libpcap-dev
    or: 
    sudo yum install libpcap-devel
  2. Make sure you have the libstdc++-static package. If not, you can install it via yum or apt-get
Configuration and compilation
  1. Run the configuration script from PcapPlusPlus main directory: 
    ./configure-linux.sh
  2. If you'd like to compile it with PF_RING please follow the instructions in DPDK & PF_RING page and press "y" in "Compile PcapPlusPlus with PF_RING?"
  3. If you'd like to compile it with DPDK please follow the instructions in DPDK & PF_RING page and press "y" in "Compile PcapPlusPlus with DPDK?"
  4. If you'd like to enable libpcap immediate mode (supported on libpcap>=1.5) please use the --use-immediate-mode flag: 
    ./configure-linux.sh --use-immediate-mode
  5. Build PcapPlusPlus libraries, unit-test and examples: 
    make all
  6. Then run the installation script as sudo: 
    sudo make install

Building PcapPlusPlus - MacOS

Prerequisites
  1. In order to compile PacpPlusPlus on Mac OS X you need to make sure Xcode is installed. Xcode contains all prerequisites required for PcapPlusPlus:
    1. gcc/g++ compiler
    2. libpcap with all relevant header files
  2. Also make sure you have Xcode Command Line Tools. You can install it by running the following command in Terminal: 
    xcode-select --install
  3. In MacOS Mojave 10.14 you need to run an extra step because /usr/include is not installed by default: 
    sudo installer -pkg /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/Packages/macOS_SDK_headers_for_macOS_10.14.pkg -target /
Configuration and compilation
  1. Run the configuration script from PcapPlusPlus main directory: 
    ./configure-mac_os_x.sh
    To enable libpcap immediate mode (supported on libpcap>=1.5) please use the --use-immediate-mode flag: 
    ./configure-linux.sh --use-immediate-mode
  2. Build PcapPlusPlus libraries, unit-test and examples: 
    make all
  3. Then run the installation script as sudo: 
    sudo make install

Simple Testing

To ensure configuration and compilation went smoothly, you can run the unit-test applications for both Packet++ and Pcap++:

seladb@seladb:~/home/PcapPlusPlus/Tests/Packet++Test$ Bin/Packet++Test
EthPacketCreation             : PASSED
EthAndArpPacketParsing        : PASSED
ArpPacketCreation             : PASSED
VlanParseAndCreation          : PASSED
Ipv4PacketCreation            : PASSED
Ipv4PacketParsing             : PASSED
Ipv4FragmentationTest         : PASSED
Ipv4UdpChecksum               : PASSED
Ipv6UdpPacketParseAndCreate   : PASSED
TcpPacketNoOptionsParsing     : PASSED
TcpPacketWithOptionsParsing   : PASSED
TcpPacketWithOptionsParsing2  : PASSED
TcpPacketCreation             : PASSED
TcpPacketCreation2            : PASSED
InsertDataToPacket            : PASSED
InsertVlanToPacket            : PASSED
RemoveLayerTest               : PASSED
HttpRequestLayerParsingTest   : PASSED
HttpRequestLayerCreationTest  : PASSED
HttpRequestLayerEditTest      : PASSED
HttpResponseLayerParsingTest  : PASSED
HttpResponseLayerCreationTest : PASSED
HttpResponseLayerEditTest     : PASSED
PPPoESessionLayerParsingTest  : PASSED
PPPoESessionLayerCreationTest : PASSED
PPPoEDiscoveryLayerParsingTest: PASSED
PPPoEDiscoveryLayerCreateTest : PASSED
DnsLayerParsingTest           : PASSED
...
...
ALL TESTS PASSED!!

seladb@seladb:~/PcapPlusPlus/Tests/Pcap++Test$ sudo Bin/Pcap++Test -i 10.0.0.1
Using ip: 10.0.0.1
Debug mode: off
Starting tests...
TestIPAddress                 : PASSED
TestMacAddress                : PASSED
TestPcapFileReadWrite         : PASSED
TestPcapSllFileReadWrite      : PASSED
TestPcapFileAppend            : PASSED
TestPcapNgFileReadWrite       : PASSED
TestPcapNgFileReadWriteAdv    : PASSED
TestPcapLiveDeviceList        : PASSED
TestPcapLiveDeviceListSearch  : PASSED
TestPcapLiveDevice            : PASSED
TestPcapLiveDeviceNoNetworking: PASSED
TestPcapLiveDeviceStatsMode   : PASSED
TestPcapLiveDeviceBlockingMode: PASSED
TestWinPcapLiveDevice         : PASSED
TestPcapFilters               : PASSED
TestSendPacket                : PASSED
TestSendPackets               : PASSED
TestRemoteCapture             : PASSED
TestHttpRequestParsing        : PASSED
TestHttpResponseParsing       : PASSED
...
...
ALL TESTS PASSED!!