.\" $Id: ngrep.8,v 1.8 1999/10/13 17:21:34 jpr5 Exp $

.TH NGREP 8 "JULY 1999" Linux "User Manuals"

.SH NAME

ngrep \- network grep

.SH SYNOPSIS

.B ngrep <-hvViwqex> <-n 
.I num
.B > <-d 
.I dev
.B > <-A 
.I num
.B > <
.I regex
.B > <
.I pcap filter logic
.B >

.SH DESCRIPTION

ngrep strives to provide most of GNU grep's common features, applying
them to the network layer.  ngrep is a pcap-aware tool that will allow
you to specify extended regular expressions to match against data
payloads of packets.  It currently recognizes TCP, UDP and ICMP across
Ethernet, PPP, SLIP and null interfaces, and understands bpf filter
logic in the same fashion as more common packet sniffing tools, such
as
.BR tcpdump (8)
and 
.BR snoop (1).


.SH OPTIONS
.IP -h
Display help/usage information.

.IP -V
Display version information.

.IP -i 
Ignore case for the regex expression. 

.IP -w
Match the regex expression as a word.

.IP -q 
Be quiet; don't output any information other than packet headers and
their payloads (if relevant).

.IP -x
Dump packet contents as hexadecimal as well as ASCII.

.IP -e 
Show empty packets.  Normally empty packets are discarded because they
have no payload to search.  If specified, empty packets will be shown,
regardless of the specified regex expression.

.IP -n
Match only
.I \fInum\fP
packets total, then exit.

.IP -d
By default ngrep will select a default interface to listen on.  Use
this option to force ngrep to listen on interface \fIdev\fP.

.IP -A
Dump \fInum\fP packets of trailing context after matching a packet. 

.IP -v 
Invert the match; only display packets that don't match.

.IP "\fI pcap filter logic\fP"
.RS
selects which packets will be dumped.  If no \fIpcap filter logic\fP
is given, all packets on the net will be dumped.  Otherwise, only
packets for which \fIpcap filter logic\fP is `true' will be dumped.
.LP
The \fIpcap filter logic\fP consists of one or more
.I primitives.
Primitives usually consist of an
.I id
(name or number) preceded by one or more qualifiers.  There are three
different kinds of qualifier:
.IP \fItype\fP
qualifiers say what kind of thing the id name or number refers to.
Possible types are
.BR host ,
.B net
and
.BR port .
E.g., `host foo', `net 128.3', `port 20'.  If there is no type
qualifier,
.B host
is assumed.
.IP \fIdir\fP
qualifiers specify a particular transfer direction to and/or from
.I id.
Possible directions are
.BR src ,
.BR dst ,
.B "src or dst"
and
.B "src and"
.BR dst .
E.g., `src foo', `dst net 128.3', `src or dst port ftp-data'.  If
there is no dir qualifier,
.B "src or dst"
is assumed.
For `null' link layers (i.e. point to point protocols such as slip) the
.B inbound
and
.B outbound
qualifiers can be used to specify a desired direction.
.IP \fIproto\fP
qualifiers are restricted to ip-only protocols.  Possible protos are:
.B tcp ,
.B udp
and
.BR icmp .
e.g., `udp src foo' or `tcp port 21'.  If there is no proto qualifier,
all protocols consistent with the type are assumed.  E.g., `src foo'
means `ip and ((tcp or udp) src foo)', `net bar' means `ip and (net
bar)', and `port 53' means `ip and ((tcp or udp) port 53)'.
.LP
In addition to the above, there are some special `primitive' keywords
that don't follow the pattern:
.BR gateway ,
.BR broadcast ,
.BR less ,
.B greater
and arithmetic expressions.  All of these are described below.
.LP
More complex filter expressions are built up by using the words
.BR and ,
.B or
and
.B not
to combine primitives.  E.g., `host foo and not port ftp and not port ftp-data'.
To save typing, identical qualifier lists can be omitted.  E.g.,
`tcp dst port ftp or ftp-data or domain' is exactly the same as
`tcp dst port ftp or tcp dst port ftp-data or tcp dst port domain'.
.LP
Allowable primitives are:

.IP "\fBdst host \fIhost\fR"
True if the IP destination field of the packet is \fIhost\fP,
which may be either an address or a name.

.IP "\fBsrc host \fIhost\fR"
True if the IP source field of the packet is \fIhost\fP.

.IP "\fBhost \fIhost\fP"
True if either the IP source or destination of the packet is \fIhost\fP.
Any of the above host expressions can be prepended with the keywords,
\fBip\fP, \fBarp\fP, or \fBrarp\fP as in:
.in +.5i
.nf
\fBip host \fIhost\fR
.fi
.in -.5i
which is equivalent to:
.in +.5i


.IP "\fBether dst \fIehost\fP"
True if the ethernet destination address is \fIehost\fP.  \fIEhost\fP
may be either a name from /etc/ethers or a number (see
.IR ethers (3N)
for numeric format).
.IP "\fBether src \fIehost\fP"
True if the ethernet source address is \fIehost\fP.
.IP "\fBether host \fIehost\fP"
True if either the ethernet source or destination address is \fIehost\fP.

.IP "\fBgateway\fP \fIhost\fP"
True if the packet used \fIhost\fP as a gateway.  I.e., the ethernet
source or destination address was \fIhost\fP but neither the IP source
nor the IP destination was \fIhost\fP.  \fIHost\fP must be a name and
must be found in both /etc/hosts and /etc/ethers.  (An equivalent
expression is
.in +.5i
.nf
\fBether host \fIehost \fBand not host \fIhost\fR
.fi
.in -.5i
which can be used with either names or numbers for \fIhost / ehost\fP.)

.IP "\fBdst net \fInet\fR"
True if the IP destination address of the packet has a network
number of \fInet\fP. \fINet\fP may be either a name from /etc/networks
or a network number (see \fInetworks(4)\fP for details).

.IP "\fBsrc net \fInet\fR"
True if the IP source address of the packet has a network
number of \fInet\fP.

.IP "\fBnet \fInet\fR"
True if either the IP source or destination address of the packet has a network
number of \fInet\fP.

.IP "\fBnet \fInet\fR \fBmask \fImask\fR"
True if the IP address matches \fInet\fR with the specific netmask.
May be qualified with \fBsrc\fR or \fBdst\fR.

.IP "\fBnet \fInet\fR/\fIlen\fR"
True if the IP address matches \fInet\fR a netmask \fIlen\fR bits wide.
May be qualified with \fBsrc\fR or \fBdst\fR.

.IP "\fBdst port \fIport\fR"
True if the packet is ip/tcp or ip/udp and has a
destination port value of \fIport\fP.
The \fIport\fP can be a number or a name used in /etc/services (see
.IR tcp (4P)
and
.IR udp (4P)).
If a name is used, both the port
number and protocol are checked.  If a number or ambiguous name is used,
only the port number is checked (e.g., \fBdst port 513\fR will print both
tcp/login traffic and udp/who traffic, and \fBport domain\fR will print
both tcp/domain and udp/domain traffic).

.IP "\fBsrc port \fIport\fR"
True if the packet has a source port value of \fIport\fP.

.IP "\fBport \fIport\fR"
True if either the source or destination port of the packet is \fIport\fP.
Any of the above port expressions can be prepended with the keywords,
\fBtcp\fP or \fBudp\fP, as in:
.in +.5i
.nf
\fBtcp src port \fIport\fR
.fi
.in -.5i
which matches only tcp packets whose source port is \fIport\fP.

.IP "\fBless \fIlength\fR"
True if the packet has a length less than or equal to \fIlength\fP.
This is equivalent to:
.in +.5i
.nf
\fBlen <= \fIlength\fP.
.fi
.in -.5i

.IP "\fBgreater \fIlength\fR"
True if the packet has a length greater than or equal to \fIlength\fP.
This is equivalent to:
.in +.5i
.nf
\fBlen >= \fIlength\fP.
.fi
.in -.5i

.IP "\fBip proto \fIprotocol\fR"
True if the packet is an ip packet (see
.IR ip (4P))
of protocol type \fIprotocol\fP.  \fIProtocol\fP can be a number or
one of the names \fItcp\fP, \fIudp\fP or \fIicmp\fP.  Note that the
identifiers \fItcp\fP and \fIudp\fP are also keywords and must be
escaped via backslash (\\), which is \\\\ in the C-shell.

.IP "\fBip broadcast\fR"
True if the packet is an IP broadcast packet.  It checks for both
the all-zeroes and all-ones broadcast conventions, and looks up
the local subnet mask.

.IP "\fBip multicast\fR"
True if the packet is an IP multicast packet.

.IP "\fBip\fR"
Abbreviation for:
.in +.5i
.nf
\fBether proto ip\fR
.fi
.IP  "\fBtcp\fR, \fBudp\fR, \fBicmp\fR"
Abbreviations for:
.in +.5i
.nf
\fBip proto \fIp\fR
.fi
.in -.5i
where \fIp\fR is one of the above protocols.
.IP  "\fIexpr relop expr\fR"
True if the relation holds, where \fIrelop\fR is one of >, <, >=, <=, =, !=,
and \fIexpr\fR is an arithmetic expression composed of integer constants
(expressed in standard C syntax), the normal binary operators
[+, -, *, /, &, |], a length operator, and special packet data accessors.
To access
data inside the packet, use the following syntax:
.in +.5i
.nf
\fIproto\fB [ \fIexpr\fB : \fIsize\fB ]\fR
.fi
.in -.5i
\fIProto\fR is one of \fBip, tcp, udp \fRor \fBicmp\fR, and
indicates the protocol layer for the index operation.  The byte
offset, relative to the indicated protocol layer, is given by
\fIexpr\fR.  \fISize\fR is optional and indicates the number of bytes
in the field of interest; it can be either one, two, or four, and
defaults to one.  The length operator, indicated by the keyword
\fBlen\fP, gives the length of the packet.

For example, `\fBether[0] & 1 != 0\fP' catches all multicast traffic.
The expression `\fBip[0] & 0xf != 5\fP'
catches all IP packets with options. The expression
`\fBip[6:2] & 0x1fff = 0\fP'
catches only unfragmented datagrams and frag zero of fragmented datagrams.
This check is implicitly applied to the \fBtcp\fP and \fBudp\fP
index operations.
For instance, \fBtcp[0]\fP always means the first
byte of the TCP \fIheader\fP, and never means the first byte of an
intervening fragment.
.LP
Primitives may be combined using:
.IP
A parenthesized group of primitives and operators
(parentheses are special to the Shell and must be escaped).
.IP
Negation (`\fB!\fP' or `\fBnot\fP').
.IP
Concatenation (`\fB&&\fP' or `\fBand\fP').
.IP
Alternation (`\fB||\fP' or `\fBor\fP').
.LP
Negation has highest precedence.
Alternation and concatenation have equal precedence and associate
left to right.  Note that explicit \fBand\fR tokens, not juxtaposition,
are now required for concatenation.
.LP
If an identifier is given without a keyword, the most recent keyword
is assumed.
For example,
.in +.5i
.nf
\fBnot host vs and ace\fR
.fi
.in -.5i
is short for
.in +.5i
.nf
\fBnot host vs and host ace\fR
.fi
.in -.5i
which should not be confused with
.in +.5i
.nf
\fBnot ( host vs or ace )\fR
.fi
.in -.5i
.LP
Expression arguments can be passed to ngrep as either a single
argument or as multiple arguments, whichever is more convenient.
Generally, if the expression contains Shell metacharacters, it is
easier to pass it as a single, quoted argument.  Multiple arguments
are concatenated with spaces before being parsed.



.SH DIAGNOSTICS

Errors from 
.B ngrep, libpcap,
and the
.B GNU regex library
are all output to stderr. 

.SH AUTHOR

Jordan Ritter <jpr5@darkridge.com>


.SH BUGS

None known at this time.