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RPCAPD(8) System Manager's Manual RPCAPD(8) NAME rpcapd - capture daemon to be controlled by a remote libpcap applica- tion SYNOPSIS rpcapd [ -b address ] [ -p port ] [ -4 ] [ -l host_list ] [ -a host,port ] [ -n ] [ -v ] [ -d ] [ -i ] [ -D ] [ -s config_file ] [ -f config_file ] DESCRIPTION Rpcapd is a daemon (Unix) or service (Win32) that allows the capture and filter part of libpcap to be run on a remote system. Rpcapd can run in two modes: passive mode (default) and active mode. In passive mode, the client (e.g., a network sniffer) connects to rp- capd. It then sends hem the appropriate commands to start the capture. In active mode, rpcapd tries to establish a connection toward the client (e.g., a network sniffer). The client then sends the appropriate commands to rpcapd to start the capture. Active mode is useful in case rpcapd is run behind a firewall and can- not receive connections from the external world. In this case, rpcapd can be configured to establish the connection to a given host, which has to be configured in order to wait for that connection. After estab- lishing the connection, the protocol continues its job in almost the same way in both active and passive mode. Configuration file The user can create a configuration file in the same folder of the exe- cutable, and put the configuration commands in there. In order for rp- capd to execute the commands, you have to restart it on Win32, i.e. the initialization file is parsed only at the beginning). The UNIX ver- sion of rpcapd will reread the configuration file when receiving a HUP signel. In that case, all the existing connections remain in place, while the new connections will be created according to the new parame- ters. In case a user does not want to create the configuration file manually, they can launch rpcapd with the requested parameters plus "-s file- name". Rpcapd will parse all the parameters and save them into the specified configuration file. Installing rpcapd on Win32 The remote daemon is installed automatically when installing WinPcap. The installation process places the rpcapd file into the WinPcap folder. This file can be executed either from the command line, or as a service. For instance, the installation process updates the list of available services list and it creates a new item (Remote Packet Cap- ture Protocol v.0 (experimental) ). To avoid security problems, the service is inactive and it has to be started manually (control panel - administrative tools - services - start). The service has a set of "standard" parameters, i.e. it is launched with the -d flag (in order to make it run as a service) and the -f rp- capd.ini flag. Starting rpcapd on Win32 The rpcapd executable can be launched directly, i.e. it can run in the foreground as well (not as a daemon/service). The procedure is quite simple: you have to invoke the executable from the command line with all the requested parameters except for the -d flag. The capture server will start in the foreground. Installing rpcapd on Unix-like systems TBD Starting rpcapd on Unix-like systems rpcapd needs sufficient privileges to perform packet capture, e.g. run as root or be owned by root and have suid set. Most operating systems provide more elegant solutions when run as user than the above solu- tions, all of them different. OPTIONS -b address Bind to the IP address specified by address (either numeric or literal). By default, rpcapd binds to all local IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. -p port Bind to the port specified by port. By default, rpcapd binds to port 2002. -4 Listen only on IPv4 addresses. By default, rpcapd listens on both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. -l host_list Only allow hosts specified in the host_list argument to connect to this server. host_list is a list of host names or IP ad- dresses, separated by commas. We suggest that you use use host names rather than literal IP addresses in order to avoid prob- lems with different address families. -n Permit NULL authentication (usually used with -l). -a host,port Run in active mode, connecting to host host on port port. In case port is omitted, the default port (2003) is used. -v Run in active mode only; by default, if -a is specified, rpcapd it accepts passive connections as well. -d Run in daemon mode (UNIX only) or as a service (Win32 only) Warning (Win32): this switch is provided automatically when the service is started from the control panel. -i Run in inetd mode (UNIX only). -D Log debugging messages. -s config_file Save the current configuration to config_file in the format specified by rpcapd-config(5). -f config_file Load the current configuration from config_file in the format specified by rpcapd-config(5); all switches specified from the command line are ignored. -h Print this help screen. SEE ALSO pcap(3), rpcapd-config(5) April 20, 2018 RPCAPD(8)