The TAP system in Wireshark is a powerful and flexible mechanism to get event driven notification on packets matching certain protocols and/or filters. In order to use the tapping system, very little knowledge of Wireshark internals is required. As examples on how to use the tap system see the implementation of tap-rpcprogs.c (tshark version) ui/qt/rpc_service_response_time_dialog.cpp (wireshark version) If all you need is to keep some counters, there's the stats_tree API, which offers a simple way to make a GUI and tshark tap-listener; see README.stats_tree. However, keep reading, as you'll need much of what's in this document. The tap system consists of two parts: 1, code in the actual dissectors to allow tapping data from that particular protocol dissector, and 2, event driven code in an extension such as tap-rpcstat.c that registers a tap listener and processes received data. So you want to hack together a tap application? TAP === First you must decide which protocol you are interested in writing a tap application for and check if that protocol has already got a tap installed in it. If it already has a tap device installed then you don't have to do anything. If not, then you have to add a tap but don't worry, this is extremely easy to do and is done in four easy steps; (see packet-rpc.c and search for tap for an example) 1, We need tap.h so just add '#include ' (preceded by packet.h) to the includes. 2, We need a tap handler so just add 'static int _tap;' 3, Down in proto_register_() you need to add '_tap = register_tap("");' 4, In the actual dissector for that protocol, after any child dissectors have returned, just add 'tap_queue_packet(_tap, pinfo, );' is used if the tap has any special additional data to provide to the tap listeners. What this points to is dependent on the protocol that is tapped, or if there is no useful extra data to provide, just specify NULL. For packet-rpc.c what we specify there is the persistent structure 'rpc_call' which contains lots of useful information from the rpc layer that a listener might need. TAP LISTENER ============ (see tap-rpcprogs.c as an example) Interfacing your application is not that much harder either. Only 4 callbacks and two functions. The two functions to start or stop tapping are register_tap_listener(const char *tapname, void *tapdata, const char *fstring, unsigned flags, void (*reset)(void *tapdata), tap_packet_status (*packet)(void *tapdata, packet_info *pinfo, epan_dissect_t *edt, const void *data), void (*draw)(void *tapdata), void (*finish)(void *tapdata)); This function is used to register an instance of a tap application to the tap system. remove_tap_listener(void *tapdata); This function is used to deregister and stop a tap listener. The parameters have the following meanings: *tapname is the name of the tap we want to listen to. I.e. the name used in step 3 above. *tapdata is the instance identifier. The tap system uses the value of this pointer to distinguish between different instances of a tap. Just make sure that it is unique by letting it be the pointer to a struct holding all state variables. If you want to allow multiple concurrent instances, just put ALL state variables inside a struct allocated by g_new() and use that pointer. (tap-rpcstat.c use this technique to allow multiple simultaneous instances) *fstring is a pointer to a filter string. If this is NULL, then the tap system will provide ALL packets passing the tapped protocol to your listener. If you specify a filter string here the tap system will first try to apply this string to the packet and then only pass those packets that matched the filter to your listener. The syntax for the filter string is identical to normal display filters. NOTE: Specifying filter strings will have a significant performance impact on your application and Wireshark. If possible it is MUCH better to take unfiltered data and just filter it yourself in the packet-callback than to specify a filter string. ONLY use a filter string if no other option exist. flags is a set of flags for the tap listener. The flags that can be set are: TL_REQUIRES_PROTO_TREE set if your tap listener "packet" routine requires a protocol tree to be built. It will require a protocol tree to be built if either 1) it looks at the protocol tree in edt->tree (N.B.: this flag does *NOT* guarantee that the tree contains all fields actually in the packet. Fields that are not referenced [by a filter, by custom columns, etc.] will be "faked" and not present. It is not necessary to include this flag if the tap has a filter string, though, as filtering implies needing the tree. So this case is rare. Actually making all fields present in the tree requires a visible tree, e.g. via epan_set_always_visible(), which hurts performance.) or 2) the tap-specific data passed to it is constructed only if the protocol tree is being built. TL_REQUIRES_COLUMNS set if your tap listener "packet" routine requires the column strings to be constructed. TL_REQUIRES_ERROR_PACKET set if your tap listener should be updated even when pinfo->flags.in_error_pkt is set e.g. if it is inside an ICMP unreachable packet. If no flags are needed, use TL_REQUIRES_NOTHING. void (*reset)(void *tapdata) This callback is called whenever Wireshark wants to inform your listener that it is about to start [re]reading a capture file or a new capture from an interface and that your application should reset any state it has in the *tapdata instance. tap_packet_status (*packet)(void *tapdata, packet_info *pinfo, epan_dissect_t *edt, const void *data) This callback is used whenever a new packet has arrived at the tap and that it has passed the filter (if there was a filter). The *data structure type is specific to each tap. This function returns a tap_packet_status enum and it should return TAP_PACKET_REDRAW, if the data in the packet caused state to be updated (and thus a redraw of the window would later be required) TAP_PACKET_DONT_REDRAW, if we don't need to redraw the window TAP_PACKET_FAILED, if the tap failed and shouldn't be called again in this pass (for example, if it's writing to a file and gets an I/O error) NOTE: that (*packet) should be as fast and efficient as possible. Use this function ONLY to store data for later and do the CPU-intensive processing or GUI updates down in (*draw) instead. void (*draw)(void *tapdata) This callback is used when Wireshark wants your application to redraw its output. It will usually not be called unless your application has received new data through the (*packet) callback. On some ports of Wireshark (Qt) (*draw) will be called asynchronously from a separate thread up to once every 2-3 seconds. On other ports it might only be called once when the capture is finished or the file has been [re]read completely. void (*finish)(void *tapdata) This callback is called when your listener is removed. So, create four callbacks: 1, reset to reset the state variables in the structure passed to it. 2, packet to update these state variables. 3, draw to take these state variables and draw them on the screen. 4, finish to free all state variables. then just make Wireshark call register_tap_listener() when you want to tap and call remove_tap_listener() when you are finished. WHEN DO TAP LISTENERS GET CALLED? =================================== Tap listeners are only called when Wireshark reads a new capture for the first time or whenever Wireshark needs to rescan/redissect the capture. Redissection occurs when you apply a new display filter or if you change and Save/Apply a preference setting that might affect how packets are dissected. After each individual packet has been completely dissected and all dissectors have returned, all the tap listeners that have been flagged to receive tap data during the dissection of the frame will be called in sequence. The order in which the tap listeners will be called is not defined. Not until all tap listeners for the frame has been called and returned will Wireshark continue to dissect the next packet. This is why it is important to make the *_packet() callbacks execute as quickly as possible, else we create an extra delay until the next packet is dissected. Keep in mind though: for some protocols, such as IP, the protocol can appear multiple times in different layers inside the same packet. For example, IP encapsulated over IP which will call the ip dissector twice for the same packet. IF the tap is going to return private data using the last parameter to tap_queue_packet() and IF the protocol can appear multiple times inside the same packet, you will have to make sure that each instance of tap_queue_packet() is using its own instance of private struct variable so they don't overwrite each other. See packet-ip.c which has a simple solution to the problem. It creates a unique instance of the IP header using wmem_alloc(). Previous versions used a static struct of 4 instances of the IP header struct and cycled through them each time the dissector was called. (4 was just a number taken out of the blue but it should be enough for most cases.) This would fail if there were more than 4 IP headers in the same packet, but that was unlikely. TIPS ==== Of course, there is nothing that forces you to make (*draw) draw stuff on the screen. You can hand register_tap_listener() NULL for (*draw), (*reset) and (*finish) (well also for (*packet) but that would be a very boring extension). Perhaps you want an extension that will execute a certain command every time it sees a certain packet? Well, try this : tap_packet_status packet(void *tapdata,...) { ... system("mail ..."); return TAP_PACKET_DONT_REDRAW; } register_tap_listener("tcp", struct, "tcp.port==57", NULL, packet, NULL, NULL); Let struct contain an email address? Then you have something simple that will make Wireshark send an email out automagically for each and every time it dissects a packet containing TCP traffic to port 57. Please put in some rate limitation if you do this. Let struct contain a command line and make (*packet) execute it? The possibilities are rather large. See tap.c as well. It contains lots of comments and descriptions on the tap system.