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1The following instructions apply if you have a Linux platform and want
2libpcap to support the 'ACN' WAN/LAN router product from SITA
3(http://www.sita.aero)
4
5This might also work on non-Linux Unix-compatible platforms, but that
6has not been tested.
7
8See also the libpcap INSTALL.txt file for further libpcap configuration
9options.
10
11These additions/extensions have been made to PCAP to allow it to
12capture packets from a SITA ACN device (and potentially others).
13
14To enable its support you need to ensure that the distribution has
15a correct configure.ac file; that can be created if neccessay by
16using the normal autoconf procedure of:
17
18aclocal
19autoconf
20autoheader
21automake
22
23Then run configure with the 'sita' option:
24
25./configure --with-sita
26
27Applications built with libpcap configured in this way will only detect SITA
28ACN interfaces and will not capture from the native OS packet stream.
29
30The SITA extension provides a remote datascope operation for capturing
31both WAN and LAN protocols.  It effectively splits the operation of
32PCAP into two halves.  The top layer performs the majority of the
33work, but interfaces via a TCP session to remote agents that
34provide the lower layer functionality of actual sniffing and
35filtering. More detailed information regarding the functions and
36inter-device protocol and naming conventions are described in detail
37in 'pcap-sita.html'.
38
39pcap_findalldevs() reads the local system's /etc/hosts file looking
40for host names that match the format of IOP type devices.  ie.  aaa_I_x_y
41and then queries each associated IP address for a list of its WAN and
42LAN devices.  The local system the aggregates the lists obtained from
43each IOP, sorts it, and provides it (to Wireshark et.al) as the
44list of monitorable interfaces.
45
46Once a valid interface has been selected, pcap_open() is called
47which opens a TCP session (to a well known port) on the target IOP
48and tells it to start monitoring.
49
50All captured packets are then forwarded across that TCP session
51back to the local 'top layer' for forwarding to the actual
52sniffing program (wireshark...)
53
54Note that the DLT_SITA link-layer type includes a proprietary header
55that is documented as part of the SITA dissector of Wireshark and is
56also described in 'pcap-sita.html' for posterity sake.
57
58That header provides:
59- Packet direction (in/out) (1 octet)
60- Link layer hardware signal status (1 octet)
61- Transmit/Receive error status (2 octets)
62- Encapsulated WAN protocol ID (1 octet)
63
64
65