- 1 - Formatted: November 14, 2024
NGREP(8) *nux NGREP(8)
User Manuals User Manuals
September 2017
NAME
ngrep - network grep
SYNOPSIS
ngrep <-hNXViwqpevxlDtTRM> <-IO pcap_dump > < -n num > < -d dev > < -A
num > < -s snaplen > < -S limitlen > < -W normal|byline|single|none > <
-c cols > < -P char > < -F file > < match expression > < bpf filter >
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, FDDI and null interfaces, and understands bpf
filter logic in the same fashion as more common packet sniffing tools,
such as tcpdump(8) and snoop(1).
OPTIONS
-h Display help/usage information.
-N Show sub-protocol number along with single-character identifier
(useful when observing raw or unknown protocols).
-X Treat the match expression as a hexadecimal string. See the
explanation of match expression below.
-V Display version information.
-i Ignore case for the regex expression.
-w Match the regex expression as a word.
-q Be quiet; don't output any information other than packet headers
and their payloads (if relevant).
-p Don't put the interface into promiscuous mode.
- 1 - Formatted: November 14, 2024
NGREP(8) *nux NGREP(8)
User Manuals User Manuals
September 2017
-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.
-v Invert the match; only display packets that don't match.
-x Dump packet contents as hexadecimal as well as ASCII.
-l Make stdout line buffered.
-D When reading pcap_dump files, replay them at their recorded time
intervals (mimic realtime).
-t Print a timestamp in the form of YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS.UUUUUU
everytime a packet is matched.
-T Print a timestamp in the form of +S.UUUUUU, indicating the delta
between packet matches. Specify a second time to indicate the
delta since the first packet match.
-R Do not try to drop privileges to the DROPPRIVS_USER.
ngrep makes no effort to validate input from live or offline
sources as it is focused more on performance and handling large
amounts of data than protocol correctness, which is most often a
fair assumption to make. However, sometimes it matters and thus
as a rule ngrep will try to be defensive and drop any root
privileges it might have.
There exist scenarios where this behaviour can become an
obstacle, so this option is provided to end-users who want to
disable this feature, but must do so with an understanding of the
risks. Packets can be randomly malformed or even specifically
designed to overflow sniffers and take control of them, and
revoking root privileges is currently the only risk mitigation
ngrep employs against such an attack. Use this option and turn
it off at your own risk.
-c cols
Explicitly set the console width to ``cols''. Note that this is
the console width, and not the full width of what ngrep prints
- 2 - Formatted: November 14, 2024
NGREP(8) *nux NGREP(8)
User Manuals User Manuals
September 2017
out as payloads; depending on the output mode ngrep may print
less than ``cols'' bytes per line (indentation).
-F file
Read in the bpf filter from the specified filename. This is a
compatibility option for users familiar with tcpdump. Please
note that specifying ``-F'' will override any bpf filter
specified on the command-line.
-P char
Specify an alternate character to signify non-printable
characters when displayed. The default is ``.''.
-K num
Kill matching TCP connections (like tcpkill). The numeric
argument controls how many RST segments are sent.
-W normal|byline|single|none
Specify an alternate manner for displaying packets, when not in
hexadecimal mode. The ``byline'' mode honors embedded linefeeds,
wrapping text only when a linefeed is encountered (useful for
observing HTTP transactions, for instance). The ``none'' mode
doesn't wrap under any circumstance (entire payload is displayed
on one line). The ``single'' mode is conceptually the same as
``none'', except that everything including IP and
source/destination header information is all on one line.
``normal'' is the default mode and is only included for
completeness. This option is incompatible with ``-x''.
-s snaplen
Set the bpf caplen to snaplen (default 65536).
-S limitlen
Set the upper limit on the size of packets that ngrep will look
at. Useful for looking at only the first N bytes of packets
without changing the BPF snaplen.
-I pcap_dump
Input file pcap_dump into ngrep. Works with any pcap-compatible
dump file format. This option is useful for searching for a wide
range of different patterns over the same packet stream.
- 3 - Formatted: November 14, 2024
NGREP(8) *nux NGREP(8)
User Manuals User Manuals
September 2017
-O pcap_dump
Output matched packets to a pcap-compatible dump file. This
feature does not interfere with normal output to stdout.
-n num
Match only num packets total, then exit.
-d dev
By default ngrep will select a default interface to listen on.
Use this option to force ngrep to listen on interface dev.
-A num
Dump num packets of trailing context after matching a packet.
match expression
A match expression is either an extended regular expression, or
if the -X option is specified, a string signifying a hexadecimal
value. An extended regular expression follows the rules as
implemented by the GNU regex library. Hexadecimal expressions
can optionally be preceded by `0x'. E.g., `DEADBEEF',
`0xDEADBEEF'.
bpf filter
Selects a filter that specifies what packets will be dumped. If
no bpf filter is given, all IP packets seen on the selected
interface will be dumped. Otherwise, only packets for which bpf
filter is `true' will be dumped. The bpf filter consists of one
or more primitives. Primitives usually consist of an id (name or
number) preceded by one or more qualifiers. There are three
different kinds of qualifier:
type qualifiers say what kind of thing the id name or number refers
to. Possible types are host, net and port. E.g., `host blort',
`net 1.2.3', `port 80'. If there is no type qualifier, host is
assumed.
dir qualifiers specify a particular transfer direction to and/or from
id. Possible directions are src, dst, src or dst and src and dst.
E.g., `src foo', `dst net 1.2.3', `src or dst port ftp-data'. If
there is no dir qualifier, src or dst is assumed. For `null'
link layers (i.e. point to point protocols such as slip) the
inbound and outbound qualifiers can be used to specify a desired
direction.
- 4 - Formatted: November 14, 2024
NGREP(8) *nux NGREP(8)
User Manuals User Manuals
September 2017
proto
qualifiers are restricted to ip-only protocols. Possible protos
are: tcp , udp and 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)'. In addition to the above,
there are some special `primitive' keywords that don't follow the
pattern: gateway, broadcast, less, greater and arithmetic
expressions. All of these are described below. More complex
filter expressions are built up by using the words and, or and
not to combine primitives. E.g., `host blort 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'. Allowable primitives are:
dst host host
True if the IP destination field of the packet is host, which may
be either an address or a name.
src host host
True if the IP source field of the packet is host.
host host
True if either the IP source or destination of the packet is
host. Any of the above host expressions can be prepended with
the keywords, ip, arp, or rarp as in:
ip host host
which is equivalent to:
ether dst ehost
True if the ethernet destination address is ehost. Ehost may be
either a name from /etc/ethers or a number (see ethers(3N) for
numeric format).
ether src ehost
True if the ethernet source address is ehost.
ether host ehost
True if either the ethernet source or destination address is
ehost.
- 5 - Formatted: November 14, 2024
NGREP(8) *nux NGREP(8)
User Manuals User Manuals
September 2017
gateway host
True if the packet used host as a gateway. I.e., the ethernet
source or destination address was host but neither the IP source
nor the IP destination was host. Host must be a name and must be
found in both /etc/hosts and /etc/ethers. (An equivalent
expression is
ether host ehost and not host host
which can be used with either names or numbers for host / ehost.)
dst net net
True if the IP destination address of the packet has a network
number of net. Net may be either a name from /etc/networks or a
network number (see networks(4) for details).
src net net
True if the IP source address of the packet has a network number
of net.
net net
True if either the IP source or destination address of the packet
has a network number of net.
net net mask mask
True if the IP address matches net with the specific netmask.
May be qualified with src or dst.
net net/len
True if the IP address matches net a netmask len bits wide. May
be qualified with src or dst.
dst port port
True if the packet is ip/tcp or ip/udp and has a destination port
value of port. The port can be a number or a name used in
/etc/services (see tcp(4P) and 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.,
dst port 513 will print both tcp/login traffic and udp/who
traffic, and port domain will print both tcp/domain and
udp/domain traffic).
src port port
True if the packet has a source port value of port.
- 6 - Formatted: November 14, 2024
NGREP(8) *nux NGREP(8)
User Manuals User Manuals
September 2017
port port
True if either the source or destination port of the packet is
port. Any of the above port expressions can be prepended with
the keywords, tcp or udp, as in:
tcp src port port
which matches only tcp packets whose source port is port.
less length
True if the packet has a length less than or equal to length.
This is equivalent to:
len <= length.
greater length
True if the packet has a length greater than or equal to length.
This is equivalent to:
len >= length.
ip proto protocol
True if the packet is an ip packet (see ip(4P)) of protocol type
protocol. Protocol can be a number or one of the names tcp, udp
or icmp. Note that the identifiers tcp and udp are also keywords
and must be escaped via backslash (\), which is \\ in the C-
shell.
ip broadcast
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 multicast
True if the packet is an IP multicast packet.
ip Abbreviation for:
ether proto ip
tcp, udp, icmp
Abbreviations for:
ip proto p
where p is one of the above protocols.
expr relop expr
True if the relation holds, where relop is one of >, <, >=, <=,
=, !=, and expr is an arithmetic expression composed of integer
- 7 - Formatted: November 14, 2024
NGREP(8) *nux NGREP(8)
User Manuals User Manuals
September 2017
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:
proto [ expr : size ]
Proto is one of ip, tcp, udp or icmp, and indicates the protocol
layer for the index operation. The byte offset, relative to the
indicated protocol layer, is given by expr. Size 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 len, gives the length of the
packet.
For example, `ether[0] & 1 != 0' catches all multicast traffic.
The expression `ip[0] & 0xf != 5' catches all IP packets with
options. The expression `ip[6:2] & 0x1fff = 0' catches only
unfragmented datagrams and frag zero of fragmented datagrams.
This check is implicitly applied to the tcp and udp index
operations. For instance, tcp[0] always means the first byte of
the TCP header, and never means the first byte of an intervening
fragment. Primitives may be combined using:
A parenthesized group of primitives and operators (parentheses
are special to the Shell and must be escaped).
Negation (`!' or `not').
Concatenation (`&&' or `and').
Alternation (`||' or `or'). Negation has highest precedence.
Alternation and concatenation have equal precedence and associate
left to right. Note that explicit and tokens, not juxtaposition,
are now required for concatenation. If an identifier is given
without a keyword, the most recent keyword is assumed. For
example,
not host vs and ace
is short for
not host vs and host ace
which should not be confused with
not ( host vs or ace )
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.
DIAGNOSTICS
Errors from ngrep, libpcap, and the GNU regex library are all output
- 8 - Formatted: November 14, 2024
NGREP(8) *nux NGREP(8)
User Manuals User Manuals
September 2017
to stderr.
EXIT STATUS
The ngrep utility exits with one of the following values:
0 One or more frames were matched.
1 No frames were matched.
2 An error occurred.
3+ Hell is freezing over, run!
AUTHOR
Written by Jordan Ritter <jpr5@darkridge.com>.
REPORTING BUGS
Please report bugs to the ngrep's GitHub Issue Tracker, located at
http://github.com/jpr5/ngrep/issues
Non-bug, non-feature-request general feedback should be sent to the
author directly by email.
NOTES
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US.
- 9 - Formatted: November 14, 2024
