1CAPINFOS(1) The Wireshark Network Analyzer CAPINFOS(1)
2
6 capinfos - Prints information about capture files
7
9 capinfos [ -a ] [ -A ] [ -b ] [ -B ] [ -c ] [ -C ] [ -d ] [ -e ] [ -E ]
10 [ -h ] [ -H ] [ -i ] [ -l ] [ -L ] [ -m ] [ -M ] [ -N ] [ -o ] [ -q ]
11 [ -Q ] [ -r ] [ -R ] [ -s ] [ -S ] [ -t ] [ -T ] [ -u ] [ -x ] [ -y ]
12 [ -z ] <infile> ...
13
15 Capinfos is a program that reads one or more capture files and returns
16 some or all available statistics (infos) of each <infile> in one of two
17 types of output formats: long or table.
18 The long output is suitable for a human to read. The table output is
20 useful for generating a report that can be easily imported into a
21 spreadsheet or database.
22 The user specifies what type of output (long or table) and which
24 statistics to display by specifying flags (options) that corresponding
25 to the report type and desired infos. If no options are specified,
26 Capinfos will report all statistics available in "long" format.
27 Options are processed from left to right order with later options
29 superseding or adding to earlier options.
30 Capinfos is able to detect and read the same capture files that are
32 supported by Wireshark. The input files don't need a specific filename
33 extension; the file format and an optional gzip compression will be
34 automatically detected. Near the beginning of the DESCRIPTION section
35 of wireshark(1) or
36 <http://www.wireshark.org/docs/man-pages/wireshark.html> is a detailed
37 description of the way Wireshark handles this, which is the same way
38 Capinfos handles this.
39
41 -a Displays the start time of the capture. Capinfos considers the
42 earliest timestamp seen to be the start time, so the first packet
43 in the capture is not necessarily the earliest - if packets exist
44 "out-of-order", time-wise, in the capture, Capinfos detects this.
45 -A Generate all infos. By default capinfos will display all infos
47 values for each input file, but enabling any of the individual
48 display infos options will disable the generate all option.
49 -b Separate infos with ASCII SPACE (0x20) characters. This option is
51 only useful when generating a table style report (-T). The various
52 info values will be separated (delimited) from one another with a
53 single ASCII SPACE character.
54 NOTE: Since some of the header labels as well as some of the value
56 fields contain SPACE characters. This option is of limited value
57 unless one of the quoting options (-q or -Q) is also specified.
58 -B Separate the infos with ASCII TAB characters. This option is only
60 useful when generating a table style report (-T). The various info
61 values will be separated (delimited) from one another with a single
62 ASCII TAB character. The TAB character is the default delimiter
63 when -T style report is enabled.
64 -c Displays the number of packets in the capture file.
66 -C Cancel processing any additional files if and when capinfos should
68 fail to open an input file. By default capinfos will attempt to
69 open each and every file name argument.
70 Note: An error message will be written to stderr whenever capinfos
72 fails to open a file regardless of whether the -C option is
73 specified or not. Upon exit, capinfos will return an error status
74 if any errors occurred during processing.
75 -d Displays the total length of all packets in the file, in bytes.
77 This counts the size of the packets as they appeared in their
78 original form, not as they appear in this file. For example, if a
79 packet was originally 1514 bytes and only 256 of those bytes were
80 saved to the capture file (if packets were captured with a snaplen
81 or other slicing option), Capinfos will consider the packet to have
82 been 1514 bytes.
83 -e Displays the end time of the capture. Capinfos considers the
85 latest timestamp seen to be the end time, so the last packet in the
86 capture is not necessarily the latest - if packets exist "out-of-
87 order", time-wise, in the capture, Capinfos detects this.
88 -E Displays the per-file encapsulation of the capture file.
90 -h Prints the help listing and exits.
92 -H Displays the SHA1, RIPEMD160, and MD5 hashes for the file.
94 -i Displays the average data rate, in bits/sec
96 -k Displays the capture comment. For pcapng files, this is the comment
98 from the section header block.
99 -l Display the snaplen (if any) for a file. snaplen (if available) is
101 determined from the capture file header and by looking for
102 truncated records in the capture file.
103 -L Generate long report. Capinfos can generate two different styles
105 of reports. The "long" report is the default style of output and
106 is suitable for a human to use.
107 -m Separate the infos with comma (,) characters. This option is only
109 useful when generating a table style report (-T). The various info
110 values will be separated (delimited) from one another with a single
111 comma "," character.
112 -M Print raw (machine readable) numeric values in long reports. By
114 default capinfos prints human-readable values with SI suffixes.
115 Table reports (-T) always print raw values.
116 -N Do not quote the infos. This option is only useful when generating
118 a table style report (-T). Excluding any quoting characters around
119 the various values and using a TAB delimiter produces a very
120 "clean" table report that is easily parsed with CLI tools. By
121 default infos are NOT quoted.
122 -o Displays "True" if packets exist in strict chronological order or
124 "False" if one or more packets in the capture exists "out-of-order"
125 time-wise.
126 -q Quote infos with single quotes ('). This option is only useful when
128 generating a table style report (-T). When this option is enabled,
129 each value will be encapsulated within a pair of single quote (')
130 characters. This option (when used with the -m option) is useful
131 for generating one type of CSV style file report.
132 -Q Quote infos with double quotes ("). This option is only useful
134 when generating a table style report (-T). When this option is
135 enabled, each value will be encapsulated within a pair of double
136 quote (") characters. This option (when used with the -m option)
137 is useful for generating the most common type of CSV style file
138 report.
139 -r Do not generate header record. This option is only useful when
141 generating a table style report (-T). If this option is specified
142 then no header record will be generated within the table report.
143 -R Generate header record. This option is only useful when generating
145 a table style report (-T). A header is generated by default. A
146 header record (if generated) is the first line of data reported and
147 includes labels for all the columns included within the table
148 report.
149 -s Displays the size of the file, in bytes. This reports the size of
151 the capture file itself.
152 -S Display the start and end times as seconds since January 1, 1970.
154 Handy for synchronizing dumps using editcap -t.
155 -t Displays the capture type of the capture file.
157 -T Generate a table report. A table report is a text file that is
159 suitable for importing into a spreadsheet or database. Capinfos
160 can build a tab delimited text file (the default) or several
161 variations on Comma-separated values (CSV) files.
162 -u Displays the capture duration, in seconds. This is the difference
164 in time between the earliest packet seen and latest packet seen.
165 -x Displays the average packet rate, in packets/sec
167 -y Displays the average data rate, in bytes/sec
169 -z Displays the average packet size, in bytes
171
173 To see a description of the capinfos options use:
174 capinfos -h
176 To generate a long form report for the capture file mycapture.pcap use:
178 capinfos mycapture.pcap
180 To generate a TAB delimited table form report for the capture file
182 mycapture.pcap use:
183 capinfos -T mycapture.pcap
185 To generate a CSV style table form report for the capture file
187 mycapture.pcap use:
188 capinfos -T -m -Q mycapture.pcap
190 or
192 capinfos -TmQ mycapture.pcap
194 To generate a TAB delimited table style report with just the filenames,
196 capture type, capture encapsulation type and packet count for all the
197 pcap files in the current directory use:
198 capinfos -T -t -E -c *.pcap
200 or
202 capinfos -TtEs *.pcap
204 Note: The ability to use of filename globbing characters are a feature
206 of *nix style command shells.
207 To generate a CSV delimited table style report of all infos for all
209 pcap files in the current directory and write it to a text file called
210 mycaptures.csv use:
211 capinfos -TmQ *.pcap >mycaptures.csv
213 The resulting mycaptures.csv file can be easily imported into
215 spreadsheet applications.
216
218 pcap(3), wireshark(1), mergecap(1), editcap(1), tshark(1), dumpcap(1),
219 pcap-filter(7) or tcpdump(8)
220
222 Capinfos is part of the Wireshark distribution. The latest version of
223 Wireshark can be found at <http://www.wireshark.org>.
224 HTML versions of the Wireshark project man pages are available at:
226 <http://www.wireshark.org/docs/man-pages>.
227
229 Original Author
230 -------- ------
231 Ian Schorr <ian[AT]ianschorr.com>
232 Contributors
235 ------------
236 Gerald Combs <gerald[AT]wireshark.org>
237 Jim Young <jyoung[AT]gsu.edu>
2381.10.14 2015-05-12 CAPINFOS(1)