Packet#

The Packet pipeline module extracts fields from Ethernet, IPv4, IPv6, TCP, and UDP packets. Each field supports an operator which can selectively filter the packet, if no operator is provided the field is extracted if available.

The packet module is useful both for filtering traffic down to specific protocols and for extracting specific fields from packets for analysis–see the examples for more.

Some field modules allow for flexible section where it is desirable to filter on a field that may have a source and destination. To accommodate selection on IPs, Ports, MACs where there are both a source and destination, the special fields Port, IP, MAC are available. If either source or destination matches an enumerated value with the field will be populated with the component that matched. For example, tcp.Port==80 will match whenever either tcp.SrcPort or tcp.DstPort are equal to 80; tcp.Port != 80 will ensure that if either the source or destination ports are 80 the packet is filtered.

Supported Options#

  • -e <arg>: The “-e” option operates on an enumerated value instead of on the entire record. For example, the packet processing engine can operate on extracted values such as analyzing layer 2 tunnels.`

Packet Processing Operators#

Operator

Name

Description

==

Equal

Field must be equal

!=

Not equal

Field must not be equal

<

Less than

Field must be less than

>

Greater than

Field must be greater than

<=

Less than or equal

Field must be less than or equal to

>=

Greater than or equal

Field must be greater than or equal to

~

Subset

Field must be a member of

!~

Not subset

Field must not be a member of

Packet Processing Submodules#

The packet processor supports submodules which allow for breaking out specific fields in a packet. Each submodule and field supports a set of operators that allow the packet processor to also filter events based on the subfields. The following sub modules are available:

Submodule

Description

eth

Ethernet frames

ipv4

IP Version 4 packets

ipv6

IP Version 6 packets

tcp

TCP packets

udp

UDP packets

icmpv4

ICMP packets

dot1q

VLAN tagged frames

dot11

802.11 Wireless packets

dot11info

802.11 information elements

modbus

modbus/TCP packets

MPLS

Multi-protocol Label Switching

Renaming Extractions#

Enumerated value names are derived by the last name in a submodule specification. For example, the specification “ipv4.SrcIP” will generate the enumerated value “SrcIP”. Enumerated value names can be overridden with an “as” argument. For example, to extract “ipv4.SrcIP” as “foo”:

tag=pcap packet ipv4.SrcIP as foo | table foo

Renamed enumerated values can also be used with filters:

tag=pcap packet ipv4.SrcIP="8.8.8.8" as foo | table foo

Examples#

The following command will find all DNS queries for Tumblr:

tag=pcap packet udp.DstPort==53 udp.Payload | grep -e Payload "tumblr" | text

The udp.DstPort==53 component specifies that we should only match on packets destined for UDP port 53, while the udp.Payload component specifies that the payload portion of each packet should be extracted into an enumerated value. We then use the grep module to search the payload for the word “tumblr” and send the results to the text renderer for display.

List of Packet Processing Submodules#

Ethernet#

Packet type

Field

Operators

Example

eth

SrcMAC

== !=

eth.SrcMAC==DE:AD:BE:EF:11:22

eth

DstMAC

== !=

eth.DstMAC != DE:AD:BE:EF:11:22

eth

MAC

== !=

eth.MAC == DE:AD:BE:EF:11:22

eth

Len

> < <= >= == !=

eth.Len > 0

eth

Type

< > <= >= == !=

eth.Type < 5

eth

Payload

eth.Payload

VLAN dot1q#

Packet type

Field

Operators

Example

dot1q

VLANID

> < <= >= == !=

dot1q.VLANID > 1024

dot1q

Priority

> < <= >= == !=

dot1q.Priority < 2

dot1q

Type

> < <= >= == !=

dot1q.Type == 2

dot1q

DropEligible

== !=

dot1q.DropEligible == true

The dot1q packet submodule is designed to enable parsing of VLAN tagged packets.

802.11 Wireless#

Packet type

Field

Operators

Example

dot11

Address1

== !=

dot11.Address1==DE:AD:BE:EF:11:22

dot11

Address2

== !=

dot11.Address2 != DE:AD:BE:EF:11:22

dot11

Address3

== !=

dot11.Address3

dot11

Address4

== !=

dot11.Address4

dot11

Type

< > <= >= == !

dot11.Type == 1

dot11

ToDS

== !

dot11.ToDS == true

dot11

FromDS

== !

dot11.FromDS != false

dot11

Payload

dot11.Payload

802.11 Information Elements#

Packet Type

Field

Operators

Example

dot11info

SSID

== !=

dot11.SSID != xfinitywifi

IPv4#

Packet type

Field

Operators

Example

ipv4

Version

== != < > <= >=

ipv4.Version != 0b11

ipv4

IHL

== != < > <= >=

ipv4.IHL == 08

ipv4

TOS

== != < > <= >=

ipv4.TOS < 10

ipv4

Length

== != < > <= >=

ipv4.Length > 0xff

ipv4

ID

== != < > <= >=

ipv4.ID == 0x5

ipv4

Flag

== != < > <= >=

ipv4.Flag == 0b1101

ipv4

FragOffset

== != < > <= >=

ipv4.FragOffset > 3

ipv4

TTL

== != < > <= >=

ipv4.TTL < 2

ipv4

Protocol

== != < > <= >=

ipv4.Protocol != 0x08

ipv4

Checksum

== != < > <= >=

ipv4.Checksum <= 0x1234

ipv4

SrcIP

== != ~ !~

ipv4.SrcIP ~ 192.168.1.1/16

ipv4

DstIP

== != ~ !~

ipv4.DstIP !~ 10.10.10.1/8

ipv4

IP

== != ~ !~

ipv4.IP ~ 192.168.1.0/14

ipv4

Payload

ipv4.Payload

IPv6#

Packet type

Field

Operators

Example

ipv6

Version

== != < > <= >=

ipv6.Version == 0x08

ipv6

TrafficClass

== != < > <= >=

ipv6.TrafficClass != 20

ipv6

FlowLabel

== != < > <= >=

ipv6.FlowLabel == 0xDEADBEEF

ipv6

Length

== != < > <= >=

ipv6.Length >= 100

ipv6

NextHeader

== != < > <= >=

ipv6.NextHeader == 0x0800

ipv6

HopLimit

== != < > <= >=

ipv6.HopLimit < 10

ipv6

SrcIP

== != ~ !~

ipv6.SrcIP != FF02::1

ipv6

DstIP

== != ~ !~

ipv6.DstIP !~ FE80::1/64

ipv6

IP

== != ~ !~

ipv6.IP == FE80::1/64

ipv6

Payload

ipv6.Payload

TCP#

Packet type

Field

Operators

Example

tcp

SrcPort

== != < > <= >=

tcp.SrcPort > 1024

tcp

DstPort

== != < > <= >=

tcp.DstPort <= 1024

tcp

Port

== != < > <= >=

tcp.Port == 80

tcp

SeqNum

== != < > <= >=

tcp.SeqNum > 0xffff

tcp

AckNum

== != < > <= >=

tcp.AckNum < 112345

tcp

Window

== != < > <= >=

tcp.Window < 1024

tcp

[SYN/ACK/FIN/RST/PSH/URG/ECE/CWR/NS]

==true, != true

tcp.SYN == true

tcp

Checksum

== != < > <= >=

tcp.Checksum != 0x1234

tcp

Urgent

== != < > <= >=

tcp.Urgent==0b111010101010101

tcp

DataOffset

== != < > <= >=

tcp.DataOffset > 96

tcp

Payload

~ !~

tcp.Payload ~ “HTTP”

UDP#

Packet type

Field

Operators

Example

udp

SrcPort

== != < > <= >=

udp.SrcPort > 0xfff

udp

DstPort

== != < > <= >=

udp.DstPort < 1024

udp

Port

== != < > <= >=

udp.Port == 53

udp

Length

== != < > <= >=

udp.Length > 100

udp

Checksum

== != < > <= >=

udp.Checksum != 0x1234

udp

Payload

~ !~

udp.Payload

ICMP V4#

Packet type

Field

Operators

Example

icmpv4

Type

== != < > <= >=

icmpv4.Type < 0x10

icmpv4

Code

== != < > <= >=

icmpv4.Code ==0x2

icmpv4

Checksum

== != < > <= >=

icmpv4.Checksum == 1024

icmpv4

ID

== != < > <= >=

icmpv4.ID == 4

icmpv4

Seq

== != < > <= >=

icmpv4.Seq > 100

icmpv4

Payload

== != ~ !~

icmpv4.Payload

ICMP V6#

Packet type

Field

Operators

Example

icmpv6

Type

== != < > <= >=

icmpv6.Type < 0x10

icmpv6

Code

== != < > <= >=

icmpv6.Code != 0x2

icmpv6

Checksum

== != < > <= >=

icmpv6.Checksum == 1024

icmpv6

Payload

== != ~ !~

icmpv6.Payload

Modbus#

Packet type

Field

Operators

Example

modbus

Transaction

== != < > <= >=

modbus.Transaction==0x120

modbus

Protocol

== != < > <= >=

modbus.Protocol==1

modbus

Length

== != < > <= >=

modbus.Length > 0

modbus

Unit

== != < > <= >=

modbus.Unit == 2

modbus

Function

== != < > <= >=

modbus.Function == 0x05

modbus

Exception

== !=

modbus.Exception == false

modbus

ReqResp

modbus.ReqResp

modbus

Payload

modbus.Payload

Note

The Modbus layer is typically the last layer, which means that the Payload value is almost always empty. When parsing Modbus packets the ReqResp value will contain read/write command addresses and values.

MPLS#

The packet search module can decode MPLS headers and allows for selective filtering. The following MPLS fields are available.

Packet type

Field

Operators

Example

mpls

Label

== != < > <= >=

mpls.Label==0x10

mpls

TrafficClass

== != < > <= >=

mpls.TrafficClass==4

mpls

StackBottom

== !=

mpls.StackBottom==true

mpls

TTL

== != < > <= >=

mpls.TTL>1

mpls

Payload

== != ~ !~

mpls.Payload~foo

For example, the following command will filter all traffic which contains MPLS headers and a traffic Label of 5

tag=pcap packet mpls.Label==5 mpls.TrafficClass mpls.Payload | grep -e Payload "HTTP" | count by TrafficClass | table TrafficClass count

Note

The MPLS package module will only look at the first MPLS layer, if there are multiple layers you will need to use the packetlayer module to decode the additional layers by referencing the Payload enumerated value.