pcap_activate(3pcap) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

PCAP_ACTIVATE(3PCAP)                                PCAP_ACTIVATE(3PCAP)

NAME         top

       pcap_activate - activate a capture handle

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <pcap/pcap.h>

       int pcap_activate(pcap_t *p);

DESCRIPTION         top

       pcap_activate() is used to activate a packet capture handle to
       look at packets on the network, with the options that were set on
       the handle being in effect.

RETURN VALUE         top

       pcap_activate() returns 0 on success without warnings, a non-zero
       positive value on success with warnings, and a negative value on
       error.  A non-zero return value indicates what warning or error
       condition occurred.

       The possible warning values are:

       PCAP_WARNING_PROMISC_NOTSUP
              Promiscuous mode was requested, but the capture source
              doesn't support promiscuous mode.

       PCAP_WARNING_TSTAMP_TYPE_NOTSUP
              The time stamp type specified in a previous
              pcap_set_tstamp_type(3PCAP) call isn't supported by the
              capture source (the time stamp type is left as the
              default),

       PCAP_WARNING
              Another warning condition occurred; pcap_geterr(3PCAP) or
              pcap_perror(3PCAP) may be called with p as an argument to
              fetch or display a message describing the warning
              condition.

       The possible error values are:

       PCAP_ERROR_ACTIVATED
              The handle has already been activated.

       PCAP_ERROR_NO_SUCH_DEVICE
              The capture source specified when the handle was created
              doesn't exist.

       PCAP_ERROR_PERM_DENIED
              The process doesn't have permission to open the capture
              source.

       PCAP_ERROR_PROMISC_PERM_DENIED
              The process has permission to open the capture source but
              doesn't have permission to put it into promiscuous mode.

       PCAP_ERROR_RFMON_NOTSUP
              Monitor mode was specified but the capture source doesn't
              support monitor mode.

       PCAP_ERROR_IFACE_NOT_UP
              The capture source device is not up.

       PCAP_ERROR_CAPTURE_NOTSUP
              Packet capture is not supported on the capture source.

       PCAP_ERROR
              Another error occurred.  pcap_geterr() or pcap_perror()
              may be called with p as an argument to fetch or display a
              message describing the error.

       If PCAP_WARNING_PROMISC_NOTSUP, PCAP_ERROR_NO_SUCH_DEVICE,
       PCAP_ERROR_PERM_DENIED, or PCAP_ERROR_CAPTURE_NOTSUP is returned,
       pcap_geterr() or pcap_perror() may be called with p as an
       argument to fetch or display an message giving additional details
       about the problem that might be useful for debugging the problem
       if it's unexpected.

       Additional warning and error codes may be added in the future; a
       program should check for positive, negative, and zero return
       codes, and treat all positive return codes as warnings and all
       negative return codes as errors.  pcap_statustostr(3PCAP) can be
       called, with a warning or error code as an argument, to fetch a
       message describing the warning or error code.

       If pcap_activate() fails, the pcap_t * is not closed and freed;
       it should be closed using pcap_close(3PCAP).

SEE ALSO         top

       pcap(3PCAP)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the libpcap (packet capture library)
       project.  Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://www.tcpdump.org/⟩.  If you have a bug report for this
       manual page, see ⟨http://www.tcpdump.org/#patches⟩.  This page
       was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/the-tcpdump-group/libpcap.git⟩ on 2024-06-14.
       (At that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found
       in the repository was 2024-06-04.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

                               3 June 2024          PCAP_ACTIVATE(3PCAP)