MERGECAP(1) MERGECAP(1)
NAME
mergecap - Merges two or more capture files into one
SYNOPSIS
mergecap [ -a ] [ -F <file format> ] [ -I <IDB merge mode> ]
[ -s <snaplen> ] [ -V ] -w <outfile>|- <infile> [<infile> ...]
mergecap -h|--help
mergecap -v|--version
DESCRIPTION
Mergecap is a program that combines multiple saved capture files into a
single output file specified by the -w argument. Mergecap knows how to
read pcap and pcapng capture files, including those of tcpdump,
Wireshark and other tools that write captures in those formats.
By default, Mergecap writes the capture file in pcapng format, and
writes all of the packets from the input capture files to the output
file.
Mergecap is able to detect, read and write the same capture files that
are supported by Wireshark. The input files don’t need a specific
filename extension; the file format and an optional gzip, zstd or lz4
compression will be automatically detected. Near the beginning of the
DESCRIPTION section of wireshark(1) or
https://www.wireshark.org/docs/man-pages/wireshark.html is a detailed
description of the way Wireshark handles this, which is the same way
Mergecap handles this.
Mergecap can write the file in several output formats. The -F flag can
be used to specify the format in which to write the capture file,
mergecap -F provides a list of the available output formats.
Packets from the input files are merged in chronological order based on
each frame’s timestamp, unless the -a flag is specified. Mergecap
assumes that frames within a single capture file are already stored in
chronological order. When the -a flag is specified, packets are copied
directly from each input file to the output file, independent of each
frame’s timestamp.
The output file frame encapsulation type is set to the type of the
input files if all input files have the same type. If not all of the
input files have the same frame encapsulation type, the output file
type is set to WTAP_ENCAP_PER_PACKET. Note that some capture file
formats, most notably pcap, do not currently support
WTAP_ENCAP_PER_PACKET. This combination will cause the output file
creation to fail.
OPTIONS
-a
Causes the frame timestamps to be ignored, writing all packets from
the first input file followed by all packets from the second input
file. By default, when -a is not specified, the contents of the
input files are merged in chronological order based on each frame’s
timestamp.
Note: when merging, mergecap assumes that packets within a capture
file are already in chronological order.
-F <file format>
Sets the file format of the output capture file. Mergecap can write
the file in several formats; mergecap -F provides a list of the
available output formats. By default this is the pcapng format.
-h|--help
Prints the version and options and exits.
-I <IDB merge mode>
Sets the Interface Description Block (IDB) merge mode to use during
merging. mergecap -I provides a list of the available IDB merge
modes.
Every input file has one or more IDBs, which describe the
interface(s) the capture was performed on originally. This includes
encapsulation type, interface name, etc. When mergecap merges
multiple input files, it has to merge these IDBs somehow for the
new merged output file. This flag controls how that is
accomplished. The currently available modes are:
none: No merging of IDBs is performed, and instead all IDBs are
copied to the merged output file.
all: IDBs are merged only if all input files have the same number
of IDBs, and each IDB matches their respective entry in the other
files. (Only the IDBs that occur at the beginning of the files,
before any packet blocks, are compared. IDBs that occur later in
the files are merged with duplicates iff the initial IDBs were
merged.) This is the default mode.
any: Any and all duplicate IDBs are merged into one IDB, regardless
of what file they are in.
Note that an IDB is only considered a matching duplicate if it has
the same encapsulation type, name, speed, time precision, comments,
description, etc.
-s <snaplen>
Sets the snapshot length to use when writing the data. If the -s
flag is used to specify a snapshot length, frames in the input file
with more captured data than the specified snapshot length will
have only the amount of data specified by the snapshot length
written to the output file. This may be useful if the program that
is to read the output file cannot handle packets larger than a
certain size (for example, the versions of snoop in Solaris 2.5.1
and Solaris 2.6 appear to reject Ethernet frames larger than the
standard Ethernet MTU, making them incapable of handling gigabit
Ethernet captures if jumbo frames were used).
-v|--version
Print the version and exit.
-V
Causes mergecap to print a number of messages while it’s working.
-w <outfile>|-
Sets the output filename. If the name is '-', stdout will be used.
This setting is mandatory.
DIAGNOSTIC OPTIONS
--log-level <level>
Set the active log level. Supported levels in lowest to highest
order are "noisy", "debug", "info", "message", "warning",
"critical", and "error". Messages at each level and higher will be
printed, for example "warning" prints "warning", "critical", and
"error" messages and "noisy" prints all messages. Levels are case
insensitive.
--log-fatal <level>
Abort the program if any messages are logged at the specified level
or higher. For example, "warning" aborts on any "warning",
"critical", or "error" messages.
--log-domains <list>
Only print messages for the specified log domains, e.g.
"GUI,Epan,sshdump". List of domains must be comma-separated.
--log-debug <list>
Force the specified domains to log at the "debug" level. List of
domains must be comma-separated.
--log-noisy <list>
Force the specified domains to log at the "noisy" level. List of
domains must be comma-separated.
--log-file <path>
Write log messages and stderr output to the specified file.
EXAMPLES
To merge two capture files together into a third capture file, in which
the last packet of one file arrives 100 seconds before the first packet
of another file, use the following sequence of commands.
First, use:
capinfos -aeS a.pcap b.pcap
to determine the start and end times of the two capture files, as
seconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC.
If a.pcap starts at 1009932757 and b.pcap ends at 873660281, then the
time adjustment to b.pcap that would make it end 100 seconds before
a.pcap begins would be 1009932757 - 873660281 - 100 = 136272376
seconds.
Thus, the next step would be to use:
editcap -t 136272376 b.pcap b-shifted.pcap
to generate a version of b.pcap with its time stamps shifted 136272376
ahead.
Then the final step would be to use :
mergecap -w compare.pcap a.pcap b-shifted.pcap
to merge a.pcap and the shifted b.pcap into compare.pcap.
SEE ALSO
pcap(3), wireshark(1), tshark(1), dumpcap(1), editcap(1), text2pcap(1),
pcap-filter(7) or tcpdump(8)
NOTES
Mergecap is based heavily upon editcap by Richard Sharpe
<sharpe[AT]ns.aus.com> and Guy Harris <guy[AT]alum.mit.edu>.
This is the manual page for Mergecap 4.0.11. Mergecap is part of the
Wireshark distribution. The latest version of Wireshark can be found at
https://www.wireshark.org.
HTML versions of the Wireshark project man pages are available at
https://www.wireshark.org/docs/man-pages.
AUTHORS
Original Author
Scott Renfro <scott[AT]renfro.org>
Contributors
Bill Guyton <guyton[AT]bguyton.com>
2023-11-17 MERGECAP(1)
Generated by dwww version 1.15 on Thu Jun 27 09:49:41 CEST 2024.