Saving and Exporting Captures
After capturing network traffic using Wireshark CLI, you may want to save the captured data for later analysis or share it with others. Wireshark CLI provides several options for saving and exporting network captures.
Saving Captured Data to a File
As mentioned earlier, you can save the captured network traffic to a file using the -w
option:
tshark -i <interface> -w capture.pcapng
This will save the captured data in the PCAPNG file format, which is a standard for network captures and can be opened in Wireshark or other network analysis tools.
In addition to the PCAPNG format, Wireshark CLI also supports exporting captured data in other formats, such as:
- PCAP: The traditional Wireshark capture file format
- CSV: Comma-Separated Values format, which can be easily imported into spreadsheet applications
- JSON: JavaScript Object Notation format, which is useful for programmatic analysis
To export the captured data in a different format, you can use the -T
option followed by the desired format. For example, to export the captured data in CSV format:
tshark -i <interface> -w capture.csv -T fields -e frame.time -e ip.src -e ip.dst -e tcp.srcport -e tcp.dstport -e tcp.len
This command will save the captured data in a CSV file, with columns for the timestamp, source and destination IP addresses, source and destination ports, and the length of the TCP packets.
Filtering and Exporting Specific Data
Wireshark CLI also allows you to filter the captured data before exporting it. This can be useful if you only need to analyze a specific subset of the captured traffic. You can use the -Y
option to specify a display filter, and the -w
option to save the filtered data to a file.
tshark -i <interface> -Y "http" -w http_traffic.pcapng
This command will capture and save only the HTTP traffic to a file named http_traffic.pcapng
.
By leveraging the powerful command-line capabilities of Wireshark CLI, you can automate the process of capturing, saving, and exporting network traffic data, making it a valuable tool for cybersecurity professionals and network administrators.