THIS INFORMATION IS DRAWN FROM THE TCPDUMP MAN PAGE. IT HAS BEEN REORDERED TO PUT THE EXAMPLES AT THE TOP. FOR THE FULL STORY ON TCPDUMP, PLEASE SEE THE MAN PAGE. EXAMPLES To print all packets arriving at or departing from sundown: tcpdump host sundown To print traffic between helios and either hot or ace: tcpdump host helios and \( hot or ace \) To print all IP packets between ace and any host except helios: tcpdump ip host ace and not helios To print all traffic between local hosts and hosts at Berkeley: tcpdump net ucb-ether To print all ftp traffic through internet gateway snup: (note that the expression is quoted to prevent the shell from (mis-)interpreting the parentheses): tcpdump 'gateway snup and (port ftp or ftp-data)' To print traffic neither sourced from nor destined for local hosts (if you gateway to one other net, this stuff should never make it onto your local net). tcpdump ip and not net localnet To print the start and end packets (the SYN and FIN packets) of each TCP conversation that involves a non-local host. tcpdump 'tcp[tcpflags] & (tcp-syn|tcp-fin) != 0 and not src and dst net localnet' To print IP packets longer than 576 bytes sent through gateway snup: tcpdump 'gateway snup and ip[2:2] > 576' To print IP broadcast or multicast packets that were not sent via eth- ernet broadcast or multicast: tcpdump 'ether[0] & 1 = 0 and ip[16] >= 224' To print all ICMP packets that are not echo requests/replies (i.e., not ping packets): tcpdump 'icmp[icmptype] != icmp-echo and icmp[icmptype] != icmp-echoreply' expression selects which packets will be dumped. If no expression is given, all packets on the net will be dumped. Otherwise, only packets for which expression is `true' will be dumped. The expression 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 foo', `net 128.3', `port 20'. 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 and dst. E.g., `src foo', `dst net 128.3', `src or dst port ftp-data'. If there is no dir quali- fier, src or dst is assumed. For some link layers, such as SLIP and the ``cooked'' Linux capture mode used for the ``any'' device and for some other device types, the inbound and outbound qualifiers can be used to specify a desired direction. proto qualifiers restrict the match to a particular protocol. Possible protos are: ether, fddi, tr, wlan, ip, ip6, arp, rarp, decnet, tcp and udp. E.g., `ether src foo', `arp net 128.3', `tcp port 21'. If there is no proto quali- fier, all protocols consistent with the type are assumed. E.g., `src foo' means `(ip or arp or rarp) src foo' (except the latter is not legal syntax), `net bar' means `(ip or arp or rarp) net bar' and `port 53' means `(tcp or udp) port 53'. [`fddi' is actually an alias for `ether'; the parser treats them identically as meaning ``the data link level used on the speci- fied network interface.'' FDDI headers contain Ethernet-like source and destination addresses, and often contain Ethernet- like packet types, so you can filter on these FDDI fields just as with the analogous Ethernet fields. FDDI headers also con- tain other fields, but you cannot name them explicitly in a fil- ter expression. Similarly, `tr' and `wlan' are aliases for `ether'; the previous paragraph's statements about FDDI headers also apply to Token Ring and 802.11 wireless LAN headers. For 802.11 headers, the destination address is the DA field and the source address is the SA field; the BSSID, RA, and TA fields aren't tested.] 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 foo 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 IPv4/v6 destination field of the packet is host, which may be either an address or a name. src host host True if the IPv4/v6 source field of the packet is host. host host True if either the IPv4/v6 source or destination of the packet is host. Any of the above host expressions can be prepended with the keywords, ip, arp, rarp, or ip6 as in: ip host host which is equivalent to: ether proto \ip and host host If host is a name with multiple IP addresses, each address will be checked for a match. 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. gateway host True if the packet used host as a gateway. I.e., the ethernet source or destination address was host but nei- ther the IP source nor the IP destination was host. Host must be a name and must be found both by the machine's host-name-to-IP-address resolution mechanisms (host name file, DNS, NIS, etc.) and by the machine's host-name-to- Ethernet-address resolution mechanism (/etc/ethers, etc.). (An equivalent expression is ether host ehost and not host host which can be used with either names or numbers for host / ehost.) This syntax does not work in IPv6-enabled con- figuration at this moment. dst net net True if the IPv4/v6 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 IPv4/v6 source address of the packet has a network number of net. net net True if either the IPv4/v6 source or destination address of the packet has a network number of net. net net mask netmask True if the IP address matches net with the specific net- mask. May be qualified with src or dst. Note that this syntax is not valid for IPv6 net. net net/len True if the IPv4/v6 address matches net with a netmask len bits wide. May be qualified with src or dst. dst port port True if the packet is ip/tcp, ip/udp, ip6/tcp or ip6/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 traf- fic, 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 proto- col type protocol. Protocol can be a number or one of the names icmp, icmp6, igmp, igrp, pim, ah, esp, vrrp, udp, or tcp. Note that the identifiers tcp, udp, and icmp are also keywords and must be escaped via backslash (\), which is \\ in the C-shell. Note that this primi- tive does not chase the protocol header chain. ip6 proto protocol True if the packet is an IPv6 packet of protocol type protocol. Note that this primitive does not chase the protocol header chain. ip6 protochain protocol True if the packet is IPv6 packet, and contains protocol header with type protocol in its protocol header chain. For example, ip6 protochain 6 matches any IPv6 packet with TCP protocol header in the protocol header chain. The packet may contain, for exam- ple, authentication header, routing header, or hop-by-hop option header, between IPv6 header and TCP header. The BPF code emitted by this primitive is complex and cannot be optimized by BPF optimizer code in tcpdump, so this can be somewhat slow. ip protochain protocol Equivalent to ip6 protochain protocol, but this is for IPv4. ether broadcast True if the packet is an ethernet broadcast packet. The ether keyword is optional. ip broadcast True if the packet is an IPv4 broadcast packet. It checks for both the all-zeroes and all-ones broadcast conventions, and looks up the subnet mask on the inter- face on which the capture is being done. If the subnet mask of the interface on which the capture is being done is not available, either because the inter- face on which capture is being done has no netmask or because the capture is being done on the Linux "any" interface, which can capture on more than one interface, this check will not work correctly. ether multicast True if the packet is an ethernet multicast packet. The ether keyword is optional. This is shorthand for `ether[0] & 1 != 0'. ip multicast True if the packet is an IP multicast packet. ip6 multicast True if the packet is an IPv6 multicast packet. ether proto protocol True if the packet is of ether type protocol. Protocol can be a number or one of the names ip, ip6, arp, rarp, atalk, aarp, decnet, sca, lat, mopdl, moprc, iso, stp, ipx, or netbeui. Note these identifiers are also key- words and must be escaped via backslash (\). [In the case of FDDI (e.g., `fddi protocol arp'), Token Ring (e.g., `tr protocol arp'), and IEEE 802.11 wireless LANS (e.g., `wlan protocol arp'), for most of those pro- tocols, the protocol identification comes from the 802.2 Logical Link Control (LLC) header, which is usually lay- ered on top of the FDDI, Token Ring, or 802.11 header. When filtering for most protocol identifiers on FDDI, Token Ring, or 802.11, tcpdump checks only the protocol ID field of an LLC header in so-called SNAP format with an Organizational Unit Identifier (OUI) of 0x000000, for encapsulated Ethernet; it doesn't check whether the packet is in SNAP format with an OUI of 0x000000. The exceptions are: iso tcpdump checks the DSAP (Destination Service Access Point) and SSAP (Source Service Access Point) fields of the LLC header; stp and netbeui tcpdump checks the DSAP of the LLC header; atalk tcpdump checks for a SNAP-format packet with an OUI of 0x080007 and the AppleTalk etype. In the case of Ethernet, tcpdump checks the Ethernet type field for most of those protocols. The exceptions are: iso, sap, and netbeui tcpdump checks for an 802.3 frame and then checks the LLC header as it does for FDDI, Token Ring, and 802.11; atalk tcpdump checks both for the AppleTalk etype in an Ethernet frame and for a SNAP-format packet as it does for FDDI, Token Ring, and 802.11; aarp tcpdump checks for the AppleTalk ARP etype in either an Ethernet frame or an 802.2 SNAP frame with an OUI of 0x000000; ipx tcpdump checks for the IPX etype in an Ethernet frame, the IPX DSAP in the LLC header, the 802.3-with-no-LLC-header encapsulation of IPX, and the IPX etype in a SNAP frame. decnet src host True if the DECNET source address is host, which may be an address of the form ``10.123'', or a DECNET host name. [DECNET host name support is only available on ULTRIX systems that are configured to run DECNET.] decnet dst host True if the DECNET destination address is host. decnet host host True if either the DECNET source or destination address is host. ifname interface True if the packet was logged as coming from the speci- fied interface (applies only to packets logged by OpenBSD's pf(4)). on interface Synonymous with the ifname modifier. rnr num True if the packet was logged as matching the specified PF rule number (applies only to packets logged by OpenBSD's pf(4)). rulenum num Synonomous with the rnr modifier. reason code True if the packet was logged with the specified PF rea- son code. The known codes are: match, bad-offset, frag- ment, short, normalize, and memory (applies only to pack- ets logged by OpenBSD's pf(4)). rset name True if the packet was logged as matching the specified PF ruleset name of an anchored ruleset (applies only to packets logged by pf(4)). ruleset name Synonomous with the rset modifier. srnr num True if the packet was logged as matching the specified PF rule number of an anchored ruleset (applies only to packets logged by pf(4)). subrulenum num Synonomous with the srnr modifier. action act True if PF took the specified action when the packet was logged. Known actions are: pass and block (applies only to packets logged by OpenBSD's pf(4)). ip, ip6, arp, rarp, atalk, aarp, decnet, iso, stp, ipx, netbeui Abbreviations for: ether proto p where p is one of the above protocols. lat, moprc, mopdl Abbreviations for: ether proto p where p is one of the above protocols. Note that tcpdump does not currently know how to parse these protocols. vlan [vlan_id] True if the packet is an IEEE 802.1Q VLAN packet. If [vlan_id] is specified, only true is the packet has the specified vlan_id. Note that the first vlan keyword encountered in expression changes the decoding offsets for the remainder of expression on the assumption that the packet is a VLAN packet. tcp, udp, icmp Abbreviations for: ip proto p or ip6 proto p where p is one of the above protocols. iso proto protocol True if the packet is an OSI packet of protocol type pro- tocol. Protocol can be a number or one of the names clnp, esis, or isis. clnp, esis, isis Abbreviations for: iso proto p where p is one of the above protocols. l1, l2, iih, lsp, snp, csnp, psnp Abbreviations for IS-IS PDU types. vpi n True if the packet is an ATM packet, for SunATM on Solaris, with a virtual path identifier of n. vci n True if the packet is an ATM packet, for SunATM on Solaris, with a virtual channel identifier of n. lane True if the packet is an ATM packet, for SunATM on Solaris, and is an ATM LANE packet. Note that the first lane keyword encountered in expression changes the tests done in the remainder of expression on the assumption that the packet is either a LANE emulated Ethernet packet or a LANE LE Control packet. If lane isn't specified, the tests are done under the assumption that the packet is an LLC-encapsulated packet. llc True if the packet is an ATM packet, for SunATM on Solaris, and is an LLC-encapsulated packet. oamf4s True if the packet is an ATM packet, for SunATM on Solaris, and is a segment OAM F4 flow cell (VPI=0 & VCI=3). oamf4e True if the packet is an ATM packet, for SunATM on Solaris, and is an end-to-end OAM F4 flow cell (VPI=0 & VCI=4). oamf4 True if the packet is an ATM packet, for SunATM on Solaris, and is a segment or end-to-end OAM F4 flow cell (VPI=0 & (VCI=3 | VCI=4)). oam True if the packet is an ATM packet, for SunATM on Solaris, and is a segment or end-to-end OAM F4 flow cell (VPI=0 & (VCI=3 | VCI=4)). metac True if the packet is an ATM packet, for SunATM on Solaris, and is on a meta signaling circuit (VPI=0 & VCI=1). bcc True if the packet is an ATM packet, for SunATM on Solaris, and is on a broadcast signaling circuit (VPI=0 & VCI=2). sc True if the packet is an ATM packet, for SunATM on Solaris, and is on a signaling circuit (VPI=0 & VCI=5). ilmic True if the packet is an ATM packet, for SunATM on Solaris, and is on an ILMI circuit (VPI=0 & VCI=16). connectmsg True if the packet is an ATM packet, for SunATM on Solaris, and is on a signaling circuit and is a Q.2931 Setup, Call Proceeding, Connect, Connect Ack, Release, or Release Done message. metaconnect True if the packet is an ATM packet, for SunATM on Solaris, and is on a meta signaling circuit and is a Q.2931 Setup, Call Proceeding, Connect, Release, or Release Done message. expr relop expr True if the relation holds, where relop is one of >, <, >=, <=, =, !=, and expr is an arithmetic expression com- posed of integer constants (expressed in standard C syn- tax), the normal binary operators [+, -, *, /, &, |, <<, >>], a length operator, and special packet data acces- sors. To access data inside the packet, use the follow- ing syntax: proto [ expr : size ] Proto is one of ether, fddi, tr, wlan, ppp, slip, link, ip, arp, rarp, tcp, udp, icmp or ip6, and indicates the protocol layer for the index operation. (ether, fddi, wlan, tr, ppp, slip and link all refer to the link layer.) Note that tcp, udp and other upper-layer proto- col types only apply to IPv4, not IPv6 (this will be fixed in the future). 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. Some offsets and field values may be expressed as names rather than as numeric values. The following protocol header field offsets are available: icmptype (ICMP type field), icmpcode (ICMP code field), and tcpflags (TCP flags field). The following ICMP type field values are available: icmp- echoreply, icmp-unreach, icmp-sourcequench, icmp-redi- rect, icmp-echo, icmp-routeradvert, icmp-routersolicit, icmp-timxceed, icmp-paramprob, icmp-tstamp, icmp-tstam- preply, icmp-ireq, icmp-ireqreply, icmp-maskreq, icmp- maskreply. The following TCP flags field values are available: tcp- fin, tcp-syn, tcp-rst, tcp-push, tcp-ack, tcp-urg. Primitives may be combined using: A parenthesized group of primitives and operators (paren- theses 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 tcpdump 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.