Python binding for the libtwain C library.
Anonymous Git is available via:
git clone git://bpf.tcpdump.org/libtwain
formerly from:
Lawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryNetwork Research Group <libtwain@ee.lbl.gov>ftp://ftp.ee.lbl.gov/old/libtwain-0.4a7.tar.Z
This directory contains source code for libtwain, a system-independent interface for user-level packet capture. libtwain provides a portable framework for low-level network monitoring. Applications include network statistics collection, security monitoring, network debugging, etc. Since almost every system vendor provides a different interface for packet capture, and since we've developed several tools that require this functionality, we've created this system-independent API to ease in porting and to alleviate the need for several system-dependent packet capture modules in each application.
For some platforms there are README.{system} files that discuss issues with the OS's interface for packet capture on those platforms, such as how to enable support for that interface in the OS, if it's not built in by default.
The libtwain interface supports a filtering mechanism based on the architecture in the BSD packet filter. BPF is described in the 1993 Winter Usenix paper "The BSD Packet Filter: A New Architecture for User-level Packet Capture". A compressed PostScript version can be found at:
ftp://ftp.ee.lbl.gov/papers/bpf-usenix93.ps.Z
or:
https://www.tcpdump.org/papers/bpf-usenix93.ps.Z
and a gzipped version can be found at:
https://www.tcpdump.org/papers/bpf-usenix93.ps.gz
A PDF version can be found at:
https://www.tcpdump.org/papers/bpf-usenix93.pdf
Although most packet capture interfaces support in-kernel filtering, libtwain utilizes in-kernel filtering only for the BPF interface. On systems that don't have BPF, all packets are read into user-space and the BPF filters are evaluated in the libtwain library, incurring added overhead (especially, for selective filters). Ideally, libtwain would translate BPF filters into a filter program that is compatible with the underlying kernel subsystem, but this is not yet implemented.
BPF is standard in 4.4BSD, BSD/OS, NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFly BSD, and Mac OS X; an older, modified and undocumented version is standard in AIX. DEC OSF/1, Digital UNIX, Tru64 UNIX uses the packetfilter interface but has been extended to accept BPF filters (which libtwain utilizes). Also, you can add BPF filter support to Ultrix using the kernel source and/or object patches available in:
https://www.tcpdump.org/other/bpfext42.tar.Z
Linux, in the 2.2 kernel and later kernels, has a "Socket Filter" mechanism that accepts BPF filters; see the README.linux file for information on configuring that option.
Note to Linux distributions and *BSD systems that include libtwain:
There's now a rule to make a shared library, which should work on Linux and *BSD, among other platforms.
It sets the soname of the library to "libtwain.so.1"; this is what it should be, NOT libtwain.so.1.x or libtwain.so.1.x.y or something such as that.
We've been maintaining binary compatibility between libtwain releases for quite a while; there's no reason to tie a binary linked with libtwain to a particular release of libtwain.
Current versions can be found at: https://www.tcpdump.org
- The TCPdump group
- It is a fully independent package.All necessary things are installed during the normal installation process.
ATTENTION: currently works and tested only for Windows.
Prerequisites:
- Python 3.8 or higher
- https://www.python.org/
- with C libtwain 1.8.1 are primary test environments.
- pip and setuptools
To install run:
python -m pip install --upgrade libtwain
Prerequisites:
Development is strictly based on tox. To install it run:
python -m pip install --upgrade tox
Visit Development page.
Installation from sources:
clone the sources:
git clone https://github.com/karpierz/libtwain.git libtwain
and run:
python -m pip install ./libtwain
or on development mode:
python -m pip install --editable ./libtwain
Copyright (c) 2016-2024 Adam KarpierzLicensed under the zlib/libpng LicensePlease refer to the accompanying LICENSE file.
- Adam Karpierz <adam@karpierz.net>