ngrep strives to provide most of GNU grep's common features, applying
them to the network layer. ngrep is a pcap-aware tool that will allow
you to specify extended regular expressions to match against data
payloads of packets. It currently recognizes TCP, UDP and ICMP across
Ethernet, PPP, SLIP, FDDI and null interfaces, and understands bpf
filter logic in the same fashion as more common packet sniffing tools,
such as
tcpdump(8)
and
snoop(1).
OPTIONS
-h
Display help/usage information.
-X
Treat the match expression as a hexadecimal string. See the
explanation of match expression below.
-V
Display version information.
-i
Ignore case for the regex expression.
-w
Match the regex expression as a word.
-q
Be quiet; don't output any information other than packet headers and
their payloads (if relevant).
-p
Don't put the interface into promiscuous mode.
-e
Show empty packets. Normally empty packets are discarded because they
have no payload to search. If specified, empty packets will be shown,
regardless of the specified regex expression.
-v
Invert the match; only display packets that don't match.
-x
Dump packet contents as hexadecimal as well as ASCII.
-l
Make stdout line buffered.
-D
When reading pcap_dump files, replay them at their recorded time
intervals (mimic realtime).
-t
Print a timestamp in the form of YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS.UUUUUU everytime
a packet is matched.
-T
Print a timestamp in the form of +S.UUUUUU, indicating the delta
between packet matches.
-R
Do not try to drop privileges to the DROPPRIVS_USER.
ngrep makes no effort to validate input from live or offline sources
as it is focused more on performance and handling large amounts of
data than protocol correctness, which is most often a fair assumption
to make. However, sometimes it matters and thus as a rule ngrep will
try to be defensive and drop any root privileges it might have.
There exist scenarios where this behaviour can become an obstacle, so
this option is provided to end-users who want to disable this feature,
but must do so with an understanding of the risks. Packets can be
randomly malformed or even specifically designed to overflow sniffers
and take control of them, and revoking root privileges is currently
the only risk mitigation ngrep employs against such an attack. Use
this option and turn it off at your own risk.
-c cols
Explicitly set the console width to ``cols''. Note that this is the
console width, and not the full width of what ngrep prints out as
payloads; depending on the output mode ngrep may print less than
``cols'' bytes per line (indentation).
-F file
Read in the bpf filter from the specified filename. This is a
compatibility option for users familiar with tcpdump. Please note
that specifying ``-F'' will override any bpf filter specified on the
command-line.
-P char
Specify an alternate character to signify non-printable characters
when displayed. The default is ``.''.
-W normal|byline|none
Specify an alternate manner for displaying packets, when not in
hexadecimal mode. The ``byline'' mode honors embedded linefeeds,
wrapping text only when a linefeed is encountered. The ``none'' mode
doesn't wrap under any circumstance (entire payload is displayed on
one line). ``normal'' is the default mode and is only included for
completeness. This option is incompatible with ``-x''.
-s snaplen
Set the bpf caplen to snaplen (default 65536).
-S limitlen
Set the upper limit on the size of packets that ngrep will look at.
Useful for looking at only the first N bytes of packets without
changing the BPF snaplen.
-I pcap_dump
Input file pcap_dump into ngrep. Works with any pcap-compatible dump
file format. This option is useful for searching for a wide range of
different patterns over the same packet stream.
-O pcap_dump
Output matched packets to a pcap-compatible dump file. This feature
does not interfere with normal output to stdout.
-n num
Match only
num
packets total, then exit.
-d dev
By default ngrep will select a default interface to listen on. Use
this option to force ngrep to listen on interface dev.
-A num
Dump num packets of trailing context after matching a packet.
-W normal|byline|none
Alter the method by which ngrep displays packet payload. ``normal''
mode represents the standard behaviour, ``byline'' instructs ngrep to
respect embedded linefeeds (useful for observing HTTP transactions,
for instance), and ``none'' results in the payload on one single line
(useful for scripted processing of ngrep output).
-c cols
Ignore the detected terminal width and force the column width to the
specified size.
-P char
Change the non-printable character from the default ``.'' to the
character specified.
-F file
Read the bpf filter from the specified file, rather than from the
command line.
match expression
A match expression is either an extended regular expression, or if the
-X option is specified, a string signifying a hexadecimal value.
An extended regular expression follows the rules as implemented by the
GNU regexlibrary.
Hexadecimal expressions can optionally be preceded by `0x'. E.g.,
`DEADBEEF', `0xDEADBEEF'.
bpf filter
Selects a filter that specifies what packets will be dumped. If no
bpf filter is given, all IP packets seen on the selected
interface will be dumped. Otherwise, only packets for which bpf
filter is `true' will be dumped.
The bpf filter consists of one or more
primitives.
Primitives usually consist of an
id
(name or number) preceded by one or more qualifiers. There are three
different kinds of qualifier:
type
qualifiers say what kind of thing the id name or number refers to.
Possible types are
host,
net
and
port.
E.g., `host blort', `net 1.2.3', `port 80'. If there is no type
qualifier,
host
is assumed.
dir
qualifiers specify a particular transfer direction to and/or from
id.
Possible directions are
src,
dst,
src or dst
and
src anddst.
E.g., `src foo', `dst net 1.2.3', `src or dst port ftp-data'. If
there is no dir qualifier,
src or dst
is assumed.
For `null' link layers (i.e. point to point protocols such as slip) the
inbound
and
outbound
qualifiers can be used to specify a desired direction.
proto
qualifiers are restricted to ip-only protocols. Possible protos are:
tcp ,udp
and
icmp.
e.g., `udp src foo' or `tcp port 21'. If there is no proto qualifier,
all protocols consistent with the type are assumed. E.g., `src foo'
means `ip and ((tcp or udp) src foo)', `net bar' means `ip and (net
bar)', and `port 53' means `ip and ((tcp or udp) port 53)'.
In addition to the above, there are some special `primitive' keywords
that don't follow the pattern:
gateway,
broadcast,
less,
greater
and arithmetic expressions. All of these are described below.
More complex filter expressions are built up by using the words
and,
or
and
not
to combine primitives. E.g., `host blort and not port ftp and not
port ftp-data'. To save typing, identical qualifier lists can be
omitted. E.g., `tcp dst port ftp or ftp-data or domain' is exactly
the same as `tcp dst port ftp or tcp dst port ftp-data or tcp dst port
domain'.
Allowable primitives are:
dst host host
True if the IP destination field of the packet is host,
which may be either an address or a name.
src host host
True if the IP source field of the packet is host.
host host
True if either the IP source or destination of the packet is host.
Any of the above host expressions can be prepended with the keywords,
ip, arp, or rarp as in:
ip host host
which is equivalent to:
ether dst ehost
True if the ethernet destination address is ehost. Ehost
may be either a name from /etc/ethers or a number (see
ethers(3N)
for numeric format).
ether src ehost
True if the ethernet source address is ehost.
ether host ehost
True if either the ethernet source or destination address is ehost.
gatewayhost
True if the packet used host as a gateway. I.e., the ethernet
source or destination address was host but neither the IP source
nor the IP destination was host. Host must be a name and
must be found in both /etc/hosts and /etc/ethers. (An equivalent
expression is
ether host ehost and not host host
which can be used with either names or numbers for host / ehost.)
dst net net
True if the IP destination address of the packet has a network
number of net. Net may be either a name from /etc/networks
or a network number (see networks(4) for details).
src net net
True if the IP source address of the packet has a network
number of net.
net net
True if either the IP source or destination address of the packet has a network
number of net.
net netmask mask
True if the IP address matches net with the specific netmask.
May be qualified with src or dst.
net net/len
True if the IP address matches net a netmask len bits wide.
May be qualified with src or dst.
dst port port
True if the packet is ip/tcp or ip/udp and has a
destination port value of port.
The port can be a number or a name used in /etc/services (see
tcp(4P)
and
udp(4P)).
If a name is used, both the port
number and protocol are checked. If a number or ambiguous name is used,
only the port number is checked (e.g., dst port 513 will print both
tcp/login traffic and udp/who traffic, and port domain will print
both tcp/domain and udp/domain traffic).
src port port
True if the packet has a source port value of port.
port port
True if either the source or destination port of the packet is port.
Any of the above port expressions can be prepended with the keywords,
tcp or udp, as in:
tcp src port port
which matches only tcp packets whose source port is port.
less length
True if the packet has a length less than or equal to length.
This is equivalent to:
len <= length.
greater length
True if the packet has a length greater than or equal to length.
This is equivalent to:
len >= length.
ip proto protocol
True if the packet is an ip packet (see
ip(4P))
of protocol type protocol. Protocol can be a number or
one of the names tcp, udp or icmp. Note that the
identifiers tcp and udp are also keywords and must be
escaped via backslash (\), which is \\ in the C-shell.
ip broadcast
True if the packet is an IP broadcast packet. It checks for both
the all-zeroes and all-ones broadcast conventions, and looks up
the local subnet mask.
ip multicast
True if the packet is an IP multicast packet.
ip
Abbreviation for:
ether proto ip
tcp, udp, icmp
Abbreviations for:
ip proto p
where p is one of the above protocols.
expr relop expr
True if the relation holds, where relop is one of >, <, >=, <=, =, !=,
and expr is an arithmetic expression composed of integer constants
(expressed in standard C syntax), the normal binary operators
[+, -, *, /, &, |], a length operator, and special packet data accessors.
To access
data inside the packet, use the following syntax:
proto [ expr : size ]
Proto is one of ip, tcp, udp or icmp, and
indicates the protocol layer for the index operation. The byte
offset, relative to the indicated protocol layer, is given by
expr. Size is optional and indicates the number of bytes
in the field of interest; it can be either one, two, or four, and
defaults to one. The length operator, indicated by the keyword
len, gives the length of the packet.
For example, `ether[0] & 1 != 0' catches all multicast traffic.
The expression `ip[0] & 0xf != 5'
catches all IP packets with options. The expression
`ip[6:2] & 0x1fff = 0'
catches only unfragmented datagrams and frag zero of fragmented datagrams.
This check is implicitly applied to the tcp and udp
index operations.
For instance, tcp[0] always means the first
byte of the TCP header, and never means the first byte of an
intervening fragment.
Primitives may be combined using:
A parenthesized group of primitives and operators
(parentheses are special to the Shell and must be escaped).
Negation (`!' or `not').
Concatenation (`&&' or `and').
Alternation (`||' or `or').
Negation has highest precedence.
Alternation and concatenation have equal precedence and associate
left to right. Note that explicit and tokens, not juxtaposition,
are now required for concatenation.
If an identifier is given without a keyword, the most recent keyword
is assumed.
For example,
not host vs and ace
is short for
not host vs and host ace
which should not be confused with
not ( host vs or ace )
Expression arguments can be passed to ngrep as either a single
argument or as multiple arguments, whichever is more convenient.
Generally, if the expression contains Shell metacharacters, it is
easier to pass it as a single, quoted argument. Multiple arguments
are concatenated with spaces before being parsed.
DIAGNOSTICS
Errors from
ngrep, libpcap,
and the
GNU regex library
are all output to stderr.
