This is my attempt to learn how to use libpcap.

Writing it in C seemed like the most sensible place to start. Once I've grasped the core concepts, I can move on to languages I'm more comfortable in. My initial intent was to do this in either Perl or Clojure.

My C is super-rusty, so try not to judge too harshly.

Contents:

• count.c:

  This was the smallest meaningful test I could come up with of the minimum set of functinality from libpcap. I figured counting the number of packets in a known packet-capture file was the easiest entry point, and I could verify it easily enough with common tools. If the count wasn't what I expected, I would know I was doing something wrong.

• myifcfg.c:

  This was about me discovering some of the libpcap utility functions for enumerating devices and the info about the addresses bound to them. I went down the rabbit hole and basically wrote my own basic version of ifconfig.

• watch.c:

  This gets closer to my goal, of running a live loop and collecting statistics about which clients are making connections. Currently, it's basically just a dumbed-down version of tcpdump; I don't really intend to implement more than a tiny subset of what that program does. The intent is to collect stats in buckets, where the keys are unique tuples of addresses and ports; then I output the contents of those buckets on a regular polling interval, which is configurable. Work-in-progress...