WinPcap

WinPcap: Capture and transmit network packets

WinPcap is a powerful tool for link-layer network access in Windows environments: The application enables programs to capture and transmit network packets, bypassing the protocol stack and also contains a number of other useful features, such as kernel-level packet filtering, a network statistics engine and support for remote packet capture.

WinPcap is basically a driver which is extending the OS to deliver low-level network access and a library used for accessing low-level network layers. The library comprises the Windows version of the popular libpcap UNIX API.

Based on the complete set of features it provides, WinPcap is the packet capture and filtering engine of a large number of open source and commercial network tools such as protocol analyzers, network monitors, network intrusion detection systems, sniffers, traffic generators and network testers. Some of them, such as Ethereal, Nmap, Snort and ntop are well-know and used products by the network community.

Features:

- High performance through the implementation of all the classic optimizations and also original ones.
- WinPcap is a very popular product, currently being used as a network interface by a large number of tools.
- WinPcap benefits from both user-based contributing over the years and experienced developers, which lead to a tested and reliable product.
- WinPcap is easy to use for both end-users and programmers: the program is easy to install and contains a developer’s pack which includes documentation, libraries and include files.
- WinPcap is a cross-platform application, actively developed for Windows NT/2000/XP/Server 2003. WinPcap is also compatible with Windows 95/98/ME but support for these operating systems is no longer available.
- WinPcap is fully compatible with libpcap, allowing you to use it to port Unix or Linux tools to Windows.
- The program provides a comprehensive documentation, including the API and the internals, designed for easy-following with hyperlinks.