pcap_findalldevs(3pcap) — Linux manual page
PCAP_FINDALLDEVS(3PCAP) PCAP_FINDALLDEVS(3PCAP)
NAME
pcap_findalldevs, pcap_freealldevs - get a list of capture
devices, and free that list
SYNOPSIS
#include <pcap/pcap.h>
char errbuf[PCAP_ERRBUF_SIZE];
int pcap_findalldevs(pcap_if_t **alldevsp, char *errbuf);
void pcap_freealldevs(pcap_if_t *alldevs);
DESCRIPTION
pcap_findalldevs() constructs a list of network devices that can
be opened with pcap_create(3PCAP) and pcap_activate(3PCAP) or
with pcap_open_live(3PCAP). (Note that there may be network
devices that cannot be opened by the process calling
pcap_findalldevs(), because, for example, that process does not
have sufficient privileges to open them for capturing; if so,
those devices will not appear on the list.) alldevsp is a
pointer to a pcap_if_t *; errbuf is a buffer large enough to hold
at least PCAP_ERRBUF_SIZE chars.
If pcap_findalldevs() succeeds, the pointer pointed to by
alldevsp is set to point to the first element of the list, or to
NULL if no devices were found (this is considered success). Each
element of the list is of type pcap_if_t, and has the following
members:
next if not NULL, a pointer to the next element in the
list; NULL for the last element of the list
name a pointer to a string giving a name for the device
to pass to pcap_open_live()
description
if not NULL, a pointer to a string giving a human-
readable description of the device
addresses
a pointer to the first element of a list of network
addresses for the device, or NULL if the device has
no addresses
flags device flags:
PCAP_IF_LOOPBACK
set if the device is a loopback interface
PCAP_IF_UP
set if the device is up
PCAP_IF_RUNNING
set if the device is running
PCAP_IF_WIRELESS
set if the device is a wireless interface;
this includes IrDA as well as radio-based
networks such as IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE
802.11, so it doesn't just mean Wi-Fi
PCAP_IF_CONNECTION_STATUS
a bitmask for an indication of whether the
adapter is connected or not; for wireless
interfaces, "connected" means "associated
with a network"
The possible values for the connection status bits
are:
PCAP_IF_CONNECTION_STATUS_UNKNOWN
it's unknown whether the adapter is
connected or not
PCAP_IF_CONNECTION_STATUS_CONNECTED
the adapter is connected
PCAP_IF_CONNECTION_STATUS_DISCONNECTED
the adapter is disconnected
PCAP_IF_CONNECTION_STATUS_NOT_APPLICABLE
the notion of "connected" and "disconnected"
don't apply to this interface; for example,
it doesn't apply to a loopback device
Each element of the list of addresses is of type pcap_addr_t, and
has the following members:
next if not NULL, a pointer to the next element in the
list; NULL for the last element of the list
addr a pointer to a struct sockaddr containing an
address
netmask
if not NULL, a pointer to a struct sockaddr that
contains the netmask corresponding to the address
pointed to by addr
broadaddr
if not NULL, a pointer to a struct sockaddr that
contains the broadcast address corresponding to the
address pointed to by addr; may be NULL if the
device doesn't support broadcasts
dstaddr
if not NULL, a pointer to a struct sockaddr that
contains the destination address corresponding to
the address pointed to by addr; may be NULL if the
device isn't a point-to-point interface
Note that the addresses in the list of addresses might be IPv4
addresses, IPv6 addresses, or some other type of addresses, so
you must check the sa_family member of the struct sockaddr before
interpreting the contents of the address; do not assume that the
addresses are all IPv4 addresses, or even all IPv4 or IPv6
addresses. IPv4 addresses have the value AF_INET, IPv6 addresses
have the value AF_INET6 (which older operating systems that don't
support IPv6 might not define), and other addresses have other
values. Whether other addresses are returned, and what types
they might have is platform-dependent. Namely, link-layer
addresses, such as Ethernet MAC addresses, have the value
AF_PACKET (on Linux) or AF_LINK (on AIX, FreeBSD, Haiku, illumos,
macOS, NetBSD and OpenBSD) or are not returned at all (on
GNU/Hurd and Solaris).
For IPv4 addresses, the struct sockaddr pointer can be
interpreted as if it pointed to a struct sockaddr_in; for IPv6
addresses, it can be interpreted as if it pointed to a struct
sockaddr_in6. For link-layer addresses, it can be interpreted as
if it pointed to a struct sockaddr_ll (for AF_PACKET) or a struct
sockaddr_dl (for AF_LINK).
The list of devices must be freed with pcap_freealldevs(3PCAP),
which frees the list pointed to by alldevs.
RETURN VALUE
pcap_findalldevs() returns 0 on success and PCAP_ERROR on
failure; as indicated, finding no devices is considered success,
rather than failure, so 0 will be returned in that case. If
PCAP_ERROR is returned, errbuf is filled in with an appropriate
error message.
BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY
The PCAP_IF_UP and PCAP_IF_RUNNING constants became available in
libpcap release 1.6.1. The PCAP_IF_WIRELESS,
PCAP_IF_CONNECTION_STATUS, PCAP_IF_CONNECTION_STATUS_UNKNOWN,
PCAP_IF_CONNECTION_STATUS_CONNECTED,
PCAP_IF_CONNECTION_STATUS_DISCONNECTED, and
PCAP_IF_CONNECTION_STATUS_NOT_APPLICABLE constants became
available in libpcap release 1.9.0.
SEE ALSO
pcap(3PCAP)
COLOPHON
This page is part of the libpcap (packet capture library)
project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://www.tcpdump.org/⟩. If you have a bug report for this
manual page, see ⟨http://www.tcpdump.org/#patches⟩. This page
was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/the-tcpdump-group/libpcap.git⟩ on 2024-06-14.
(At that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found
in the repository was 2024-06-04.) If you discover any rendering
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