On Jun 7, 2005, at 3:49 AM, Bruce M Simpson wrote:
1) Compatibility of WinPcap vs libpcap -- it would be nice if we
could build both Win32 and UNIX versions from the same libpcap
tree,
but this is something we can work around at XORP makefile level;
Build Win32 and UNIX versions of XORP, or of libpcap?
If libpcap, what are the problems that prevent using standard libpcap/
WinPcap, built (if necessary) and installed (if necessary) from their
source trees?
as I understand it from the current thread, WinPcap and libpcap
are
pretty much separate projects -- it would be nice if they could be
re-integrated in the same way as libevent and libdnet are.
"Re-integrated" in what sense?
The WinPcap developers track what's done in libpcap, and contribute
back their changes to the shared portions of the code.
However, unlike UN*Xes, which have a native packet capture mechanism
that libpcap uses, Windows doesn't - WinPcap also includes drivers
for Windows OT (95, 98, Me) and NT (NT4, W2K, WXP, W2K3) and
libraries that talk to the driver, with the actual libpcap portion
implemented atop the API provided by the library.
"Re-integrating" them would involve incorporating the driver and
libraries into libpcap - you'd have to ask the WinPcap developers if
that'd be acceptable - or having separate "packet driver" and
"libpcap" projects, with the former being the driver and library for
the driver. However, that'd run the risk of making the "packet
driver" API a published API, and the WinPcap developers don't want
that - they want to be able to change that API from release to
release, if necessary, with the libpcap code changed to match.
It appears that libevent doesn't need to make additions of that sort
to Windows. Libdnet handles that by assuming that the "packet
driver" API is a published API; if it changes in a future WinPcap
version, libdnet runs the risk of breaking.
2) Support for link-layer frame injection across most UNIX
platforms and
Win32 using libpcap.
WinPcap's had that for a while; I checked support for that on UN*X
platforms into libpcap a while ago.
So basically to make that happen we need a libpcap which is portable
to Windows
The current libpcap source is probably portable to "Windows+the
WinPcap driver and library", or could be made so; it's not portable
to Windows without the driver and library (well, I guess you could
use it to read and write savefiles, but that's about it).
and is capable of link layer writes.
WinPcap is capable of that, and libpcap 0.9 will be capable of that
as well.
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