capinfos - Prints information about capture files

OriginalAuthor
       Ian Schorr <ian[AT]ianschorr.com>

       Contributors
       Gerald Combs <gerald[AT]wireshark.org>
       Jim Young <jyoung[AT]gsu.edu>

                                                   2025-06-10                                        CAPINFOS(1)

Capinfos is a program that reads one or more capture files and returns some or all available statistics
       (infos) of each <infile> in one of two types of output formats: long or table.

       The long output is suitable for a human to read. The table output is useful for generating a report that
       can be easily imported into a spreadsheet or database.

       The user specifies what type of output (long or table) and which statistics to display by specifying
       flags (options) that corresponding to the report type and desired infos. If no options are specified,
       Capinfos will report all statistics available in "long" format.

       Options are processed from left to right order with later options superseding or adding to earlier
       options.

       Capinfos is able to detect and read 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 Capinfos handles this.

       --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. Can be negated with "!" as the first character (inverts the match).

       --log-debug <list>
           Force the specified domains to log at the "debug" level. List of domains must be comma-separated. Can
           be negated with "!" as the first character (inverts the match).

       --log-noisy <list>
           Force the specified domains to log at the "noisy" level. List of domains must be comma-separated. Can
           be negated with "!" as the first character (inverts the match).

       --log-fatal-domains <list>
           Abort the program if any messages are logged for the specified log domains. List of domains must be
           comma-separated.

       --log-file <path>
           Write log messages and stderr output to the specified file.

       To see a description of the options use:

           capinfos -h

       To generate a long form report for the capture file mycapture.pcap use:

           capinfos mycapture.pcap

       To generate a TAB delimited table form report for the capture file mycapture.pcap use:

           capinfos -T mycapture.pcap

       To generate a CSV style table form report for the capture file mycapture.pcap use:

           capinfos -T -m -Q mycapture.pcap

       or

           capinfos -TmQ mycapture.pcap

       To generate a TAB delimited table style report with just the filenames, capture type, capture
       encapsulation type and packet count for all the pcap files in the current directory use:

           capinfos -T -t -E -c *.pcap

       or

           capinfos -TtEc *.pcap

       Note: The ability to use of filename globbing characters are a feature of *nix style command shells.

       To generate a CSV delimited table style report of all infos for all pcap files in the current directory
       and write it to a text file called mycaptures.csv use:

           capinfos -TmQ *.pcap >mycaptures.csv

       The resulting mycaptures.csv file can be easily imported into spreadsheet applications.

       capinfos - Prints information about capture files

       This is the manual page for Capinfos 4.4.7. Capinfos 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.

       -a
           Displays the timestamp of the earliest packet in the capture. The earliest packet in the capture is
           not necessarily the first packet in the capture - if packets exist "out-of-order", time-wise, in the
           capture, Capinfos detects this.

       -A
           Generate all infos. By default Capinfos will display all infos values for each input file, but
           enabling any of the individual display infos options will disable the generate all option.

       -b

           Separate infos with ASCII SPACE (0x20) characters. This option is only useful when generating a table
           style report (-T). The various info values will be separated (delimited) from one another with a
           single ASCII SPACE character.

               Note

               Since some of the header labels as well as some of the value fields contain SPACE characters.
               This option is of limited value unless one of the quoting options (-q or -Q) is also specified.

       -B
           Separate the infos with ASCII TAB characters. This option is only useful when generating a table
           style report (-T). The various info values will be separated (delimited) from one another with a
           single ASCII TAB character. The TAB character is the default delimiter when -T style report is
           enabled.

       -c
           Displays the number of packets in the capture file.

       -C

           Cancel processing any additional files if and when Capinfos fails to open an input file or gets an
           error reading an input file. By default Capinfos will continue processing files even if it gets an
           error opening or reading a file.

           Note: An error message will be written to stderr whenever Capinfos fails to open a file or gets an
           error reading from a file regardless whether the -C option is specified or not. Upon exit, Capinfos
           will return an error status if any errors occurred during processing.

       -d
           Displays the total length of all packets in the file, in bytes. This counts the size of the packets
           as they appeared in their original form, not as they appear in this file. For example, if a packet
           was originally 1514 bytes and only 256 of those bytes were saved to the capture file (if packets were
           captured with a snaplen or other slicing option), Capinfos will consider the packet to have been 1514
           bytes.

       -D
           Displays a count of the number of decryption secrets in the file. This information is not available
           in table format.

       -e
           Displays the timestamp of the latest packet in the capture. The latest packet in the capture is not
           necessarily the last packet in the capture

           •   if packets exist "out-of-order", time-wise, in the capture, Capinfos detects this.

       -E
           Displays the per-file encapsulation of the capture file.

       -F
           Displays additional capture file information.

       -h|--help
           Print the version number and options and exit.

       -H
           Displays the SHA256 and SHA1 hashes for the file. SHA1 output may be removed in the future.

       -i
           Displays the average data rate, in bits/sec

       -I
           Displays detailed capture file interface information. This information is not available in table
           format.

       -k
           Displays the capture comment. For pcapng files, this is the comment from the section header block.

       -K
           Use this option to suppress printing capture comments. By default capture comments are enabled.
           Capture comments are relatively freeform and might contain embedded new-line characters and/or other
           delimiting characters making it harder for a human or machine to easily parse the Capinfos output.
           Excluding capture comments can aid in post-processing of output.

       -l
           Display the snaplen (if any) for a file. snaplen (if available) is determined from the capture file
           header and by looking for truncated records in the capture file.

       -L
           Generate long report. Capinfos can generate two different styles of reports. The "long" report is the
           default style of output and is suitable for a human to use.

       -m
           Separate the infos with comma (,) characters. This option is only useful when generating a table
           style report (-T). The various info values will be separated (delimited) from one another with a
           single comma "," character.

       -M
           Print raw (machine readable) values in long reports. By default Capinfos prints numeric values with
           human-readable SI suffixes, and shows human-readable file type and encapsulation. Table reports (-T)
           always print raw values.

       -n
           Displays a count of the number of resolved IPv4 addresses and a count of the number of resolved IPv6
           addresses in the file. This information is not available in table format.

       -N
           Do not quote the infos. This option is only useful when generating a table style report (-T).
           Excluding any quoting characters around the various values and using a TAB delimiter produces a very
           "clean" table report that is easily parsed with CLI tools. By default infos are NOT quoted.

       -o
           Displays "True" if packets exist in strict chronological order or "False" if one or more packets in
           the capture exists "out-of-order" time-wise.

       -p
           Display individual packet comments. It is recommended to print raw values (-M) when using this option
           as packet comments may include newlines and other special characters.

       -P
           Disable displaying individual packet comments.

       -q
           Quote infos with single quotes ('). This option is only useful when generating a table style report
           (-T). When this option is enabled, each value will be encapsulated within a pair of single quote (')
           characters. This option (when used  with the -m option) is useful for generating one type of CSV
           style file report.

       -Q
           Quote infos with double quotes ("). This option is only useful when generating a table style report
           (-T). When this option is enabled, each value will be encapsulated within a pair of double quote (")
           characters. This option (when used with the -m option) is useful for generating the most common type
           of CSV style file report.

       -r
           Do not generate header record. This option is only useful when generating a table style report (-T).
           If this option is specified then no header record will be generated within the table report.

       -R
           Generate header record. This option is only useful when generating a table style report (-T). A
           header is generated by default. A header record (if generated) is the first line of data reported and
           includes labels for all the columns included within the table report.

       -s
           Displays the size of the file, in bytes. This reports the size of the capture file itself.

       -S
           Display the earliest and latest packet timestamps as seconds since January 1, 1970. Handy for
           synchronizing dumps using editcap-t.

       -t
           Displays the capture type of the capture file.

       -T
           Generate a table report. A table report is a text file that is suitable for importing into a
           spreadsheet or database. Capinfos can build a tab delimited text file (the default) or several
           variations on Comma-separated values (CSV) files.

       -u
           Displays the capture duration, in seconds. This is the difference in time between the earliest packet
           seen and latest packet seen.

       -v|--version
           Print the full version information and exit.

       -x
           Displays the average packet rate, in packets/sec

       -y
           Displays the average data rate, in bytes/sec

       -z
           Displays the average packet size, in bytes

pcap(3), wireshark(1), mergecap(1), editcap(1), tshark(1), dumpcap(1), captype(1), pcap-filter(7) or
       tcpdump(8)

capinfos [ -a ] [ -A ] [ -b ] [ -B ] [ -c ] [ -C ] [ -d ] [ -D ] [ -e ] [ -E ] [ -F ] [ -h ] [ -H ]
       [ -i ] [ -I ] [ -k ] [ -K ] [ -l ] [ -L ] [ -m ] [ -M ] [ -n ] [ -N ] [ -o ] [ -p ] [ -P ] [ -q ] [ -Q ]
       [ -r ] [ -R ] [ -s ] [ -S ] [ -t ] [ -T ] [ -u ] [ -v ] [ -x ] [ -y ] [ -z ] <infile> ...capinfos-h|--helpcapinfos-v|--version