1CAPINFOS(1) The Wireshark Network Analyzer CAPINFOS(1)
2
6 capinfos - Prints information about capture files
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9 capinfos [ -a ] [ -A ] [ -b ] [ -B ] [ -c ] [ -C ] [ -d ] [ -D ] [ -e ]
10 [ -E ] [ -F ] [ -h ] [ -H ] [ -i ] [ -I ] [ -k ] [ -K ] [ -l ] [ -L ]
11 [ -m ] [ -M ] [ -n ] [ -N ] [ -o ] [ -q ] [ -Q ] [ -r ] [ -R ] [ -s ]
12 [ -S ] [ -t ] [ -T ] [ -u ] [ -v ] [ -x ] [ -y ] [ -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 <https://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 fails
68 to open an input file or gets an error reading an input file. By
69 default capinfos will continue processing files even if it gets an
70 error opening or reading a file.
71 Note: An error message will be written to stderr whenever capinfos
73 fails to open a file or gets an error reading from a file
74 regardless whether the -C option is specified or not. Upon exit,
75 capinfos will return an error status if any errors occurred during
76 processing.
77 -d Displays the total length of all packets in the file, in bytes.
79 This counts the size of the packets as they appeared in their
80 original form, not as they appear in this file. For example, if a
81 packet was originally 1514 bytes and only 256 of those bytes were
82 saved to the capture file (if packets were captured with a snaplen
83 or other slicing option), Capinfos will consider the packet to have
84 been 1514 bytes.
85 -D Displays a count of the number of decryption secrets in the file.
87 -e Displays the end time of the capture. Capinfos considers the
89 latest timestamp seen to be the end time, so the last packet in the
90 capture is not necessarily the latest - if packets exist "out-of-
91 order", time-wise, in the capture, Capinfos detects this.
92 -E Displays the per-file encapsulation of the capture file.
94 -F Displays additional capture file information.
96 -h Prints the help listing and exits.
98 -H Displays the SHA256, RIPEMD160, and SHA1 hashes for the file. SHA1
100 output may be removed in the future.
101 -i Displays the average data rate, in bits/sec
103 -I Displays detailed capture file interface information. This
105 information is not available in table format.
106 -k Displays the capture comment. For pcapng files, this is the comment
108 from the section header block.
109 -K Use this option to suppress printing capture comments. By default
111 capture comments are enabled. Capture comments are relatively
112 freeform and might contain embedded new-line characters and/or
113 other delimiting characters making it harder for a human or machine
114 to easily parse the capinfos output. Excluding capture comments
115 can aid in post-processing of output.
116 -l Display the snaplen (if any) for a file. snaplen (if available) is
118 determined from the capture file header and by looking for
119 truncated records in the capture file.
120 -L Generate long report. Capinfos can generate two different styles
122 of reports. The "long" report is the default style of output and
123 is suitable for a human to use.
124 -m Separate the infos with comma (,) characters. This option is only
126 useful when generating a table style report (-T). The various info
127 values will be separated (delimited) from one another with a single
128 comma "," character.
129 -M Print raw (machine readable) numeric values in long reports. By
131 default capinfos prints human-readable values with SI suffixes.
132 Table reports (-T) always print raw values.
133 -n Displays a count of the number of resolved IPv4 addresses and a
135 count of the number of resolved IPv6 addresses in the file.
136 -N Do not quote the infos. This option is only useful when generating
138 a table style report (-T). Excluding any quoting characters around
139 the various values and using a TAB delimiter produces a very
140 "clean" table report that is easily parsed with CLI tools. By
141 default infos are NOT quoted.
142 -o Displays "True" if packets exist in strict chronological order or
144 "False" if one or more packets in the capture exists "out-of-order"
145 time-wise.
146 -q Quote infos with single quotes ('). This option is only useful when
148 generating a table style report (-T). When this option is enabled,
149 each value will be encapsulated within a pair of single quote (')
150 characters. This option (when used with the -m option) is useful
151 for generating one type of CSV style file report.
152 -Q Quote infos with double quotes ("). This option is only useful
154 when generating a table style report (-T). When this option is
155 enabled, each value will be encapsulated within a pair of double
156 quote (") characters. This option (when used with the -m option)
157 is useful for generating the most common type of CSV style file
158 report.
159 -r Do not generate header record. This option is only useful when
161 generating a table style report (-T). If this option is specified
162 then no header record will be generated within the table report.
163 -R Generate header record. This option is only useful when generating
165 a table style report (-T). A header is generated by default. A
166 header record (if generated) is the first line of data reported and
167 includes labels for all the columns included within the table
168 report.
169 -s Displays the size of the file, in bytes. This reports the size of
171 the capture file itself.
172 -S Display the start and end times as seconds since January 1, 1970.
174 Handy for synchronizing dumps using editcap -t.
175 -t Displays the capture type of the capture file.
177 -T Generate a table report. A table report is a text file that is
179 suitable for importing into a spreadsheet or database. Capinfos
180 can build a tab delimited text file (the default) or several
181 variations on Comma-separated values (CSV) files.
182 -u Displays the capture duration, in seconds. This is the difference
184 in time between the earliest packet seen and latest packet seen.
185 -v Displays the tool's version and exits.
187 -x Displays the average packet rate, in packets/sec
189 -y Displays the average data rate, in bytes/sec
191 -z Displays the average packet size, in bytes
193
195 To see a description of the capinfos options use:
196 capinfos -h
198 To generate a long form report for the capture file mycapture.pcap use:
200 capinfos mycapture.pcap
202 To generate a TAB delimited table form report for the capture file
204 mycapture.pcap use:
205 capinfos -T mycapture.pcap
207 To generate a CSV style table form report for the capture file
209 mycapture.pcap use:
210 capinfos -T -m -Q mycapture.pcap
212 or
214 capinfos -TmQ mycapture.pcap
216 To generate a TAB delimited table style report with just the filenames,
218 capture type, capture encapsulation type and packet count for all the
219 pcap files in the current directory use:
220 capinfos -T -t -E -c *.pcap
222 or
224 capinfos -TtEs *.pcap
226 Note: The ability to use of filename globbing characters are a feature
228 of *nix style command shells.
229 To generate a CSV delimited table style report of all infos for all
231 pcap files in the current directory and write it to a text file called
232 mycaptures.csv use:
233 capinfos -TmQ *.pcap >mycaptures.csv
235 The resulting mycaptures.csv file can be easily imported into
237 spreadsheet applications.
238
240 pcap(3), wireshark(1), mergecap(1), editcap(1), tshark(1), dumpcap(1),
241 pcap-filter(7) or tcpdump(8)
242
244 Capinfos is part of the Wireshark distribution. The latest version of
245 Wireshark can be found at <https://www.wireshark.org>.
246 HTML versions of the Wireshark project man pages are available at:
248 <https://www.wireshark.org/docs/man-pages>.
249
251 Original Author
252 -------- ------
253 Ian Schorr <ian[AT]ianschorr.com>
254 Contributors
257 ------------
258 Gerald Combs <gerald[AT]wireshark.org>
259 Jim Young <jyoung[AT]gsu.edu>
2603.4.5 2021-05-27 CAPINFOS(1)