Intercept the IP Stack traffic through our intermediate multi-platform Packet Intercepting / NDIS Driver Toolkit and receive raw IP traffic directly into your high level application.
IP packet capture technology is typically used for implementing comprehensive high-performance network application features, such as:
- VPN Gateway/Client software
- Firewalls
- Filtering applications
- Transparent network encryption
- LAN analyzers, sniffers, network monitoring
- Network Test applications
- PPP (e.g. PPP over Ethernet or PPTP)
- Packet Sniffers
- Traffic Logging
- More...
The multi-platform Toolkit is compatibility tested with the majority of LAN (Ethernet) cards available for Linux, Windows, FreeBSD and OS/2 and the technology is proudly showcased in our InJoy Firewall™ product.
Packet Intercepting Toolkit - Overview
The Packet Intercepting / NDIS Driver Toolkit came into existence out of a
very simple need. F/X's InJoy Firewall™ software needed to safely intercept incoming and outgoing
packets from the networking subsystem, transport them to a user-land
application, and drop them as necessary. The Toolkit offers this
capability, and more, uniquely across multiple operating systems:
- Intercept IP packets as they flow through existing Ethernet Network
Cards (and Dial-Up WAN adapters on Windows).
- Send, receive and filter RAW Ethernet Frames (IP traffic).
- Completely avoid device driver programming. Operates solely in
user-land, thus avoiding kernel space complexity and limitations.
- Easily query LAN adapter information.
- Use an OS platform unified interface for supporting multiple
Operating System platforms, including Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and OS/2.
- Easily install and uninstall required components, using manual OS driver installation or scripted (programmable) installation.
To illustrate both minimal application behavior and more complex applications, the Toolkit includes multiple template applications, such as a fully functioning ready-to-run IPSec VPN Client/Server (based on F/X's IPSec Toolkit).
Packet Capture Technology
The Packet Intercepting Toolkit is a combination of a C language programming
abstraction library (IPAPI) and a device driver. Together with the user
application, these components allow you to rapidly develop new, or extend
existing networking products.
- Intermediate Device Driver
The Toolkit driver technology is available as an intermediate NDIS driver on Windows and OS/2. On Linux and FreeBSD, packet intercepting is made possible through an independent NDIS-like device driver component. Intermediate drivers layer between upper-level protocol drivers (typically the Operating System TCP/IP Stack) and low-level MAC drivers (typically the Network Interface Card), in order to intercept traffic and allow high-level application control. - Platform Unified Application Interface
Your network application interfaces the Toolkit Driver through a loadable C-language module, called IPAPI. The IPAPI module is developed by F/X Communications and it provides a simple multi-platform abstraction library for the low-level driver technology. It is implemented as a Dynamic Link Library (DLL) on Windows/OS2 and as a Shared Library on Linux. - Well Tested, Robust
Packet intercepting drivers layer with multi-vendor network card drivers and some of the most complicated OS kernel interfaces. Even tiny bugs in the toolkit device driver or bugs in third-party network drivers can bring the Operating System to a halt. Accordingly, any professional packet intercepting engine must undergo thorough testing before it can reach the stability-level required in production environments. We use our own packet intercepting toolkit in the InJoy Firewall™ and as the result of its world-wide deployment, we can offer a truly robust solution that few competitors can match.
The following diagram illustrates the technology.
