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Build From Source on Windows - Visual Studio

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

Table of contents

  1. Prerequisites
  2. Visual Studio project structure
  3. Configuration
    1. Wizard mode
    2. Command line switches mode
  4. Build the code
  5. Running tests

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. WinPcap developer’s pack OR Npcap SDK - containing the wpcap library PcapPlusPlus is linking with plus relevant h files.
    1. WinPcap developer’s pack can be downloaded from here: https://www.winpcap.org/devel.htm
    2. Npcap SDK can be downloaded from here: https://nmap.org/npcap/#download
  3. pthread-win32 - can be downloaded from here: ftp://sourceware.org/pub/pthreads-win32/pthreads-w32-2-9-1-release.zip
  4. In many cases you also need to download and install:
  5. OPTIONAL - download Zstd libraries if you wish to enable PCAPNG streaming compression support

Visual Studio project structure

After configuration is complete there are 3 Visual Studio solutions:

  • mk\[vs_version]\PcapPlusPlus.sln - contains PcapPlusPlus libraries (Common++, Packet++ and Pcap++) and unit-tests projects
  • mk\[vs_version]\PcapPlusPlus-Examples.sln - contains all PcapPlusPlus examples. Requires PcapPlusPlus.sln to be built first
  • mk\[vs_version]\Tutorials.sln - contains all PcapPlusPlus tutorial examples. Requires PcapPlusPlus.sln to be built first

*** [vs_version] can be either vs2015, vs2017 or vs2019 and is determined during the configuration process.

PcapPlusPlus Visual Studio solution

PcapPlusPlus Visual Studio example solution

All solutions support both 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) configurations as well as Debug and Release modes. So there are 4 supported modes:

  • x86|Debug
  • x86|Release
  • x64|Debug
  • x64|Release

Configuration

Before opening the solution (.sln) files please run the configure-windows-visual-studio.bat batch file from PcapPlusPlus main directory. This script configures the solution and project files according to the selected version of Visual Studio. It also creates a Visual Studio properties file called PcapPlusPlusPropertySheet.props that contains paths for 3rd-party libraries being used to build PcapPlusPlus.

Ths script has two modes of operation:

  • Wizard mode - the script will walk you through the paths and parameters you need to provide
  • Command line switches mode - all parameters are provided in the script command line

Wizard mode

In wizard mode the script will ask you for the requested version of Visual Studio and the locations of WinPcap developer’s pack / Npcap SDK and pthreads-win32. Here is an example:

C:\PcapPlusPlus>configure-windows-visual-studio.bat

***********************************************
PcapPlusPlus Visual Studio configuration script
***********************************************

Choose Visual Studio version.

Currently supported options are: vs2015, vs2017 or vs2019: vs2019


WinPcap or Npcap SDK is required for compiling PcapPlusPlus.
For downloading WinPcap SDK (developer's pack) please go to https://www.winpcap.org/devel.htm
For downloading Npcap SDK please go to https://nmap.org/npcap/#download

Please specify WinPcap/Npcap SDK path: C:\WpdPack


pthreads-win32 is required for compiling PcapPlusPlus.
If you didn't download it already, please download it from here: ftp://sourceware.org/pub/pthreads-win32/pthreads-w32-2-9-1-release.zip

Please specify pthreads-win32 path: C:\pthread-win32

PcapPlusPlus Visual Studio configuration is complete. Files created (or modified): PcapPlusPlusPropertySheet.props, Arping.vcxproj,
ArpSpoofing.vcxproj, Common++.vcxproj, DNSResolver.vcxproj, DnsSpoofing.vcxproj, HttpAnalyzer.vcxproj, IcmpFileTransfer-catcher.vcxproj,
IcmpFileTransfer-pitcher.vcxproj, IPDefragUtil.vcxproj, IPFragUtil.vcxproj, LightPcapNg.vcxproj, Packet++.vcxproj, Packet++Test.vcxproj,
Pcap++.vcxproj, Pcap++Test.vcxproj, PcapPrinter.vcxproj, PcapSearch.vcxproj, PcapSplitter.vcxproj, SSLAnalyzer.vcxproj, TcpReassembly.vcxproj,
Tutorial-HelloWorld.vcxproj, Tutorial-LiveTraffic.vcxproj, Tutorial-PacketCraftAndEdit.vcxproj, Tutorial-PacketParsing.vcxproj,
Tutorial-PcapFiles.vcxproj

Command line switches mode

In this mode you need to provide the requested Visual Studio version as well as the paths as script params. You can use the --help switch to query these switches:

C:\PcapPlusPlus>configure-windows-visual-studio.bat --help

***********************************************
PcapPlusPlus Visual Studio configuration script
***********************************************


Help documentation for configure-windows-visual-studio.bat
This script has 2 modes of operation:
  1) Without any switches. In this case the script will guide you through using wizards
  2) With switches, as described below

Basic usage: configure-windows-visual-studio.bat [-h] -v VS_VERSION -p PTHREADS_WIN32_DIR -w PCAP_SDK_DIR

The following switches are recognized:
-v|--vs-version      --Set Visual Studio version to configure. Must be one of: vs2015, vs2017, vs2019
-p|--pthreads-home   --Set pthreads-win32 home directory
-w|--pcap-sdk        --Set WinPcap/Npcap SDK directory
-z|--zstd-sdk        --Set ZStd SDK directory
-h|--help            --Display this help message and exits. No further actions are performed

Here is an example:

C:\PcapPlusPlus>configure-windows-visual-studio.bat --vs-version 2019 --pcap-sdk C:\Npcap-SDK --pthreads-home C:\pthread-win32

***********************************************
PcapPlusPlus Visual Studio configuration script
***********************************************


PcapPlusPlus Visual Studio configuration is complete. Files created (or modified): PcapPlusPlusPropertySheet.props, Arping.vcxproj,
ArpSpoofing.vcxproj, Common++.vcxproj, DNSResolver.vcxproj, DnsSpoofing.vcxproj, HttpAnalyzer.vcxproj, IcmpFileTransfer-catcher.vcxproj,
IcmpFileTransfer-pitcher.vcxproj, IPDefragUtil.vcxproj, IPFragUtil.vcxproj, LightPcapNg.vcxproj, Packet++.vcxproj, Packet++Test.vcxproj,
Pcap++.vcxproj, Pcap++Test.vcxproj, PcapPrinter.vcxproj, PcapSearch.vcxproj, PcapSplitter.vcxproj, SSLAnalyzer.vcxproj, TcpReassembly.vcxproj,
Tutorial-HelloWorld.vcxproj, Tutorial-LiveTraffic.vcxproj, Tutorial-PacketCraftAndEdit.vcxproj, Tutorial-PacketParsing.vcxproj,
Tutorial-PcapFiles.vcxproj

Here are the available switches:

-v , --vs-version Visual Studio version to configure.
Currently supported versions are: vs2015, vs2017, vs2019
-p , --pthreads-home pthreads-win32 home directory
-w , --pcap-sdk Path to WinPcap Developer Pack (WpdPack) OR Npcap SDK
-z , --zstd-sdk Path to Zstd SDK directory. This is an optional parameter that is required only if using Zstd for PCAPNG streaming compression
-h , --help Display the help message and exit. No further actions are performed

Build the code

  • Build mk\[vs_version]\PcapPlusPlus.sln first to get PcapPlusPlus libraries and unit-tests
  • Then you can choose to build mk\[vs_version]\PcapPlusPlus-Examples.sln to get PcapPlusPlus examples
  • You can also choose to build mk\[vs_version]\Tutorials.sln to see the tutorial examples

You can build these 3 solutions using either Visual Studio IDE or MSBuild.

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.