PCAP-LINKTYPE

Section: Environments, Tables, and Troff Macros (7)
Updated: 23 October 2008
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NAME

pcap-linktype - link-layer header types supported by libpcap  

DESCRIPTION

For a live capture or ``savefile'', libpcap supplies, as the return value of the pcap_datalink(3PCAP) routine, a value that indicates the type of link-layer header at the beginning of the packets it provides. This is not necessarily the type of link-layer header that the packets being captured have on the network from which they're being captured; for example, packets from an IEEE 802.11 network might be provided by libpcap with Ethernet headers that the network adapter or the network adapter driver generates from the 802.11 headers. The names for those values begin with DLT_, so they are sometimes called "DLT_ values".

The values stored in the link-layer header type field in the savefile header are, in most but not all cases, the same as the values returned by pcap_datalink(). The names for those values begin with LINKTYPE_.

The link-layer header types supported by libpcap are listed here. The value corresponding to LINKTYPE_ names are given; the value corresponding to DLT_ values are, in some cases, platform dependent, and are not given; applications should check for particular DLT_ values by name.

DLT_NULL; LINKTYPE_NULL=0
BSD loopback encapsulation; the link layer header is a 4-byte field, in host byte order, containing a PF_ value from socket.h for the network-layer protocol of the packet.
Note that ``host byte order'' is the byte order of the machine on which the packets are captured, and the PF_ values are for the OS of the machine on which the packets are captured; if a live capture is being done, ``host byte order'' is the byte order of the machine capturing the packets, and the PF_ values are those of the OS of the machine capturing the packets, but if a ``savefile'' is being read, the byte order and PF_ values are not necessarily those of the machine reading the capture file.
DLT_EN10MB; LINKTYPE_ETHERNET=1
Ethernet (10Mb, 100Mb, 1000Mb, and up); the 10MB in the DLT_ name is historical.
DLT_IEEE802; LINKTYPE_TOKEN_RING=6
IEEE 802.5 Token Ring; the IEEE802 in the DLT_ name is historical.
DLT_ARCNET; LINKTYPE_ARCNET=7
ARCNET
DLT_SLIP; LINKTYPE_SLIP=8
SLIP; the link layer header contains, in order:

a 1-byte flag, which is 0 for packets received by the machine and 1 for packets sent by the machine;

a 1-byte field, the upper 4 bits of which indicate the type of packet, as per RFC 1144:

0x40
an unmodified IP datagram (TYPE_IP);
0x70
an uncompressed-TCP IP datagram (UNCOMPRESSED_TCP), with that byte being the first byte of the raw IP header on the wire, containing the connection number in the protocol field;
0x80
a compressed-TCP IP datagram (COMPRESSED_TCP), with that byte being the first byte of the compressed TCP/IP datagram header;

for UNCOMPRESSED_TCP, the rest of the modified IP header, and for COMPRESSED_TCP, the compressed TCP/IP datagram header;

for a total of 16 bytes; the uncompressed IP datagram follows the header.

DLT_PPP; LINKTYPE_PPP=9
PPP; if the first 2 bytes are 0xff and 0x03, it's PPP in HDLC-like framing, with the PPP header following those two bytes, otherwise it's PPP without framing, and the packet begins with the PPP header.
DLT_FDDI; LINKTYPE_FDDI=10
FDDI
DLT_ATM_RFC1483; LINKTYPE_ATM_RFC1483=100
RFC 1483 LLC/SNAP-encapsulated ATM; the packet begins with an IEEE 802.2 LLC header.
DLT_RAW; LINKTYPE_RAW=101
raw IP; the packet begins with an IP header.
DLT_PPP_SERIAL; LINKTYPE_PPP_HDLC=50
PPP in HDLC-like framing, as per RFC 1662, or Cisco PPP with HDLC framing, as per section 4.3.1 of RFC 1547; the first byte will be 0xFF for PPP in HDLC-like framing, and will be 0x0F or 0x8F for Cisco PPP with HDLC framing.
DLT_PPP_ETHER; LINKTYPE_PPP_ETHER=51
PPPoE; the packet begins with a PPPoE header, as per RFC 2516.
DLT_C_HDLC; LINKTYPE_C_HDLC=104
Cisco PPP with HDLC framing, as per section 4.3.1 of RFC 1547.
DLT_IEEE802_11; LINKTYPE_IEEE802_11=105
IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN
DLT_FRELAY; LINKTYPE_FRELAY=107
Frame Relay
DLT_LOOP; LINKTYPE_LOOP=108
OpenBSD loopback encapsulation; the link layer header is a 4-byte field, in network byte order, containing a PF_ value from OpenBSD's socket.h for the network-layer protocol of the packet.
Note that, if a ``savefile'' is being read, those PF_ values are not necessarily those of the machine reading the capture file.
DLT_LINUX_SLL; LINKTYPE_LINUX_SLL=113
Linux "cooked" capture encapsulation; the link layer header contains, in order:

a 2-byte "packet type", in network byte order, which is one of:

0
packet was sent to us by somebody else
1
packet was broadcast by somebody else
2
packet was multicast, but not broadcast, by somebody else
3
packet was sent by somebody else to somebody else
4
packet was sent by us

a 2-byte field, in network byte order, containing a Linux ARPHRD_ value for the link layer device type;

a 2-byte field, in network byte order, containing the length of the link layer address of the sender of the packet (which could be 0);

an 8-byte field containing that number of bytes of the link layer header (if there are more than 8 bytes, only the first 8 are present);

a 2-byte field containing an Ethernet protocol type, in network byte order, or containing 1 for Novell 802.3 frames without an 802.2 LLC header or 4 for frames beginning with an 802.2 LLC header.

DLT_LTALK; LINKTYPE_LTALK=104
Apple LocalTalk; the packet begins with an AppleTalk LLAP header.
DLT_PFLOG; LINKTYPE_PFLOG=117
OpenBSD pflog; the link layer header contains a struct pfloghdr structure, as defined by the host on which the file was saved. (This differs from operating system to operating system and release to release; there is nothing in the file to indicate what the layout of that structure is.)
DLT_PRISM_HEADER; LINKTYPE_PRISM_HEADER=119
Prism monitor mode information followed by an 802.11 header.
DLT_IP_OVER_FC; LINKTYPE_IP_OVER_FC=122
RFC 2625 IP-over-Fibre Channel, with the link-layer header being the Network_Header as described in that RFC.
DLT_SUNATM; LINKTYPE_SUNATM=123
SunATM devices; the link layer header contains, in order:

a 1-byte flag field, containing a direction flag in the uppermost bit, which is set for packets transmitted by the machine and clear for packets received by the machine, and a 4-byte traffic type in the low-order 4 bits, which is one of:

0
raw traffic
1
LANE traffic
2
LLC-encapsulated traffic
3
MARS traffic
4
IFMP traffic
5
ILMI traffic
6
Q.2931 traffic

a 1-byte VPI value;

a 2-byte VCI field, in network byte order.

DLT_IEEE802_11_RADIO; LINKTYPE_IEEE802_11_RADIO=127
link-layer information followed by an 802.11 header - see http://www.shaftnet.org/~pizza/software/capturefrm.txt for a description of the link-layer information.
DLT_ARCNET_LINUX; LINKTYPE_ARCNET_LINUX=129
ARCNET, with no exception frames, reassembled packets rather than raw frames, and an extra 16-bit offset field between the destination host and type bytes.
DLT_LINUX_IRDA; LINKTYPE_LINUX_IRDA=144
Linux-IrDA packets, with a DLT_LINUX_SLL header followed by the IrLAP header.
DLT_LINUX_LAPD; LINKTYPE_LINUX_LAPD=177
LAPD (Q.921) frames, with a DLT_LINUX_SLL header captured via vISDN.
 

SEE ALSO

pcap_datalink(3PCAP)