Sniph - Packet monitoring, filtering and analysis made simple and intuitive

Think tcpdump, but for humans 😄

✨ Features

Cross Platform and multi-threaded

Sniph works on Linux, MacOS and Windows.

Beautiful and Intuitive output

See packets in an easy to understand format. (subject to terminal width)

./sniph -i en0
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                   Source IP                   |                Destination IP                 | Src Port  | Dest Port |   IP   |  Direction  | Layer 4  | Layer 7 |      timestamp      |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|    2a00:23c7:47c6:b501:31cf:ad92:2b8a:b322    |             2606:4700::6810:a76b              |   54495   |    443    |  IPV6  |  OUTGOING   |   TCP    |  HTTPS  | 2025-09-26 14:13:33 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                 192.168.1.95                  |                239.255.255.251                |   48948   |   1900    |  IPV4  |  OUTGOING   |   UDP    |  SSDP   | 2025-09-26 14:13:38 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                 192.168.1.254                 |                239.255.255.251                |   39927   |   1900    |  IPV4  |  MULTICAST  |   UDP    |  SSDP   | 2025-09-26 14:13:38 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Simple and Robust Packet filtering

Filter packets by combinations of src_ip, dst_ip ,src_port, dst_port and transport. Example.

./sniph -i en0 -f "src_ip == 2a01:23c6:47a6:b501:19d2:6381:6249:91df, src_port > 22"
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                   Source IP                   |                Destination IP                 | Src Port  | Dest Port |   IP   |  Direction  | Layer 4  | Layer 7 |      timestamp      |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|    2a01:23c6:47a6:b501:19d2:6381:6249:91df    |           2a00:1450:4009:820::200a            |   53478   |    443    |  IPV6  |  OUTGOING   |   UDP    |  HTTPS  | 2025-09-26 21:40:19 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|    2a01:23c6:47a6:b501:19d2:6381:6249:91df    |            2a00:1450:4009:c15::5f             |   56944   |    443    |  IPV6  |  OUTGOING   |   UDP    |  HTTPS  | 2025-09-26 21:40:19 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|    2a01:23c6:47a6:b501:19d2:6381:6249:91df    |           2a00:1450:4009:820::200a            |   53478   |    443    |  IPV6  |  OUTGOING   |   UDP    |  HTTPS  | 2025-09-26 21:40:19 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Packet Aggregation and throughput Graphs

Generate a csv report of aggregated packets, as well as SVG images of data and packet throughput.

Example CSV:

Throughput Files

Pause and Resume Capturing

Press p to pause capturing packets and r to resume capturing packets

and many more .............

Installation

Prerequisites

Rust

Make sure you have Rust (1.86+) and Cargo installed. You can install them using here.

OS Specific Dependencies

See installation instructions for your in the installation guide.

Install via Homebrew (MacOS)

add the tap

brew tap samuelorji/sniph

then install

brew install sniph

Installation via Cargo

Ensure you have the latest version of Cargo.

rustup update

Then run the following command to install sniph:

cargo install sniph

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/samuelorji/sniph.git
cd sniph
cargo build --release
./target/release/sniph -i <network interface>

🚀 Quick Start

On Windows, the following commands will be sniph.exe instead of sniph

List available network interfaces

sniph -d

Start sniffing on a specific interface

sniph -i en0

Start sniffing on a specific interface and write report to output folder

sniph -i en0 -o ./output

Start sniffing on a specific interface with a filter and write report to output folder

sniph -i en0 -f "src_ip == 2a01:23c6:47a6:b501:19d2:6381:6249:91df, src_port > 22" -o ./output

Start sniffing on a specific interface with a filter, aggregation window of 60 seconds and write report to output folder

sniph -i en0 -f "src_ip == 2a01:23c6:47a6:b501:19d2:6381:6249:91df, src_port > 22" -w 60 -o ./output

Stop sniffing

Press Ctrl + C to stop sniffing. Sniph will gracefully shutdown and write some stats to console and write report to output folder if specified

CLI Options.

Simple and intuitive Packet Sniffing Program

Usage: sniph [OPTIONS]

Options:
  -d, --devices
          Prints devices or interfaces found on system and exits
  -i, --interface <INTERFACE>
          interface to sniff on. Will exit with an error if the interface cannot be found
  -o, --output <OUTPUT>
          Optional output folder where report will be written to. If no output is specified, no report is written output will be a folder with name report_YYYY_MM_DD_H_M_S containing a report in csv and 2 SVG files showing data and packet throughput
  -b, --buffer <BUFFER>
          size of print buffer, if set to 0, packets will be printed to stdout immediately.
          if set to a larger number, calls to stdout will be buffered up to this value and then written to stdout. [default: 1024]
  -q, --quiet
          If captured packets should be printed to stdout in realtime, quiet mode can result in better performance as there won't be calls to print to console
  -f, --filter <FILTER>
          Filters to apply to captured packets E.g src_port > 8000 or dst_port < 4000
          Multiple filters can be combined by commas (e.g src_ip > 8000, dst_ip < 4000)
          Each filter should be in the format <field> <operator> <value>
          Supported fields: src_ip, dst_ip, src_port, dst_port, transport
          Supported operators: >, <, >=, <=, ==, !=
          Example: --filter "src_ip == 192.168.1.1"
          Example: --filter "src_port >= 8000, dst_port < 4000"
          Note: A space must exist between the field, operator and value
          Note: No spaces between commas and next filter
          If no filter is provided, all packets are captured
          == and != operators are string comparisons and only valid for IP addresses and protocol
          >, <, >=, <= operators are numeric comparisons and only valid for ports
  -w, --window <WINDOW>
          time window to group packet statistics together before writing to output file
          Not supplying a window means that statistics will be aggregated in memory for the entire length of the program running which can lead to increased memory consumption
      --max-packet-size <MAX_PACKET_SIZE>
          Optional packet size limit for captured packets
          Setting to a lower value can result in better performance as less data is copied from kernel space to user space
          However, setting to a lower value means that some packets may be truncated and therefore dropped by the packet parser
          Default is 5000 bytes which should be sufficient for most use cases [default: 5000]
  -h, --help
          Print help
  -V, --version
          Print version

Packet Filtering

🔍 Packet Filtering Engine

• Multi-field Filtering: Filter by source/destination IP addresses and ports
• Transport Protocol Filtering: Support for TCP and UDP protocol filtering
• Flexible Operators: Equality (==), inequality (!=), and range-based filtering (>, <, >=, <=)
• Boolean Logic: Support for inclusion and exclusion rules
• IPv4/IPv6 Support: String-based IP address matching (no validation performed)

🎯 Filter Syntax

Supported Fields

• src_ip - Source IP address (canonical IPV4/IPV6 string comparison)
• dst_ip - Destination IP address (canonical IPV4/IPV6 stringcomparison)
• src_port - Source port number (1-65535)
• dst_port - Destination port number (1-65535)
• transport - Transport protocol (tcp or udp, case-insensitive)

Supported Operators

• == - Exact match (for IPs and protocols)
• != - Exclusion match (for IPs and protocols)
• >=, <= - Range comparisons (for ports only)
• >, < - Strict range comparisons (for ports only)

Filter Syntax Rules

• Multiple filters are separated by commas
• Each filter has exactly 3 parts: field operator value
• Whitespace around operators is ignored
• Maximum of 10 filters per filter string
• Maximum value length of 49 characters
• Case-insensitive protocol matching
• Last filter for a field takes precedence (e.g multiple src_port filters)
• If no filters are specified, all packets are captured

Example Filters

• src_ip == 192.168.1.1
• dst_port >= 80, dst_port <= 443
• transport == tcp
• src_ip != 192.168.1.1
• src_port > 1024, dst_port < 8080, transport == udp
• src_ip == 2001:db8::1, dst_ip != 2001:db8::2, transport == tcp

Reports

Text Report

Sniph generates a report in csv format containing aggregated packet statistics over a specified time window (default is none) if an output folder is specified. The aggregation window can be configured using the -w or --window argument.

The report contains the following fields:

• src_ip: Source IP address
• dst_ip: Destination IP address
• src_port: Source port number
• dst_port: Destination port number
• ip_version: IP version (IPv4 or IPv6)
• transport_protocol: Transport protocol (TCP or UDP)
• traffic_direction: Traffic direction (INCOMING, OUTGOING, MULTICAST)
• num_packets: Number of packets in the time window
• bytes_transferred: Total bytes transferred in the time window
• start_time: Start time of packet transmission
• end_time: End time of packet transmission
• time_window_start: Start time of the aggregation window

Graphical Reports

Sniph generates two SVG graphs showing data and packet throughput over time if an output folder is specified

• data_throughput.svg: Graph showing data throughput (bytes per second) over time

See Example:

• packet_throughput.svg: Graph showing packet throughput (packets per second) over time See Example:

⚖️ Behavior Details

Port Range Defaults

• Default port range: 1-65535 for both source and destination
• Port filters are cumulative (last filter wins for conflicting ranges)
• Range validation ensures min_port <= max_port

IP Address Matching

• String-based comparison (no IP parsing/validation)
• Exact string match required
• Case-sensitive comparison
• Supports canonical IP string format (IPv4 and IPv6 only)

Protocol Matching

• Case-insensitive string comparison
• Only "tcp" and "udp" are supported
• Last protocol filter wins if multiple specified

Filter Precedence

• Multiple filters for the same field: last filter wins
• Combined filters: all conditions must be satisfied
• No filters specified: default to permissive behavior

Print to Console Behavior

• Packets are printed to console in a tabular format by default, but if you only want to write a report to an output folder and don't care about seeing packets in real-time, you can use the -q or --quiet flag to disable printing to console
• Buffered printing controlled by (-b or --buffer) controls how many bytes are buffered before flushing to stdout
• Buffer size of 0 means immediate printing (no buffering)
• Larger buffer sizes reduce the number of write calls to stdout, improving performance
• Default buffer size is 1024 bytes

Possible Errors and Solutions

Pcap Permission denied error

You may incur the following error when trying to run sniph on Unix based systems (Linux and MacOS):

PcapError("Cannot open BPF device /dev/bpf0: Permission denied (os error 13)")

This is due to insufficient permissions to access the BPF devices on your system.

To fix this, the user running sniph must have read and write permissions to the BPF devices.

this can be done by changing the ownership of the BPF devices to the user running sniph.

sudo chown <username> /dev/bp*

Where <username> can be retrieved with the command whoami

Another way to solve this is to run Sniph as root:

sudo sniph [OPTIONS]

📄 License

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See LICENSE.

Licensed under the MIT License, See LICENSE

Contributing

We welcome contributions to Sniph! Please see the contributing guide file for more information on how to get involved.