packet.txt

用来监视网络通信数据的源代码和应用程序,方便网络程序底层开发.

/** @ingroup internals
 */


/** @defgroup packetapi Packet Driver API developer's manual
 *  @{ \htmlonly
@}

Packet.dll is a dynamic link library that offers a set of low level functions
to:
<ul>
  <li>install, start and stop the NPF device driver</li>
  <li>sniff the network traffic</li>
  <li>send packets to the network</li>
  <li>obtain the list of the available network adapters</li>
  <li>retrieve various information about an adapter, like the description and
    the list of addresses and netmasks</li>
  <li>query and set various low-level parameters of an adapter</li>
</ul>
<p> There are two versions of packet.dll: the first one works in Windows 95/98/ME, the second in Windows
NT/2000/XP.</p>
<p>Packet.dll was born to provide a layer granting access the low level
functionalities of WinPcap in a system independent way. This library copes with
the system dependent details (like managing the devices, interacting with the OS
to handle the adapters, looking for the information in the registry and so on),
and export an API that is the same on the different Win32 OSes. In this way,
applications or libraries that use it can run without being recompiled
under any Win32 operating system. </p>
<p>However, currently this portability does not
apply to the whole packet.dll API: some of the most recent features, like for
example kernel-mode dump, are present only in the WinNTx version of WinPcap,
therefore packet.dll for Win9x does not export them. On the other side, the NTx
version is a superset of the 9x one, in other words all the function present in
the Win9x version are present also in WinNTx.</p>
<p>The other important role of this library is the handling of the NPF driver.
Packet.dll transparently installs and starts the driver when an application
attempts to access an adapter. This avoids the manual installation of the driver
through the control panel.</p>
<h2>Important note, read carefully!</h2>
<p>If you are writing a capture application and you do not have particular/low
level requrements, you are <b>recommended</b> to use the functions of wpcap (see
the section&nbsp; \endhtmlonly \ref wpcap \htmlonly), that are compatible
with the ones of the Unix packet capture library (<i>libpcap</i>), instead of
the API described in this chapter. wpcap.dll relies on packet.dll, but provides
a more powerful, immediate and easy to use programming environment. With
wpcap.dll, operations like capturing a packet, creating a capture filter or
saving a dump on a file are safely implemented and intuitive to use.&nbsp; Moreover, the programs written to use libpcap are easily compiled on
Unix thanks to the compatibility between Win32 and Unix versions of this
library.</p>
<p>As a consequence, since the <b>normal</b> and <b>suggested</b> way for an
application to use WinPcap is through wpcap.dll, <b>we don't grant that the
packet.dll API will not be changed in the future releases</b>.</p>
<p>However, since libpcap was written to be portable and to offer a
system-independent capture API, it cannot exploit all the features offered by
the driver. Use packet.dll only if you need one of these features.</p>

\endhtmlonly
*/