UNIX Tools: tcpdump – packet analysis tool

tcpdump is a common network packet analyzer that runs under the command line. It allows the user to intercept and display packets being transmitted or received over a network to which the computer is attached. tcpdump is mandatory for anyone desiring a thorough understanding of TCP/IP.

tcpdump works on most Unix-like operating systems: BSD, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, HP-UX and AIX among others. In those systems, tcpdump uses the libpcap library to capture packets. There is also a port of tcpdump for Windows called WinDump and it uses WinPcap, which is a port of libpcap to Windows.