dnspktflow - Man Page
Analyze and draw DNS flow diagrams from a tcpdump file
Synopsis
dnspktflow -o output.png file.tcpdump dnspktflow -o output.png -x -a -t -q file.tcpdump
Description
The dnspktflow application takes a tcpdump network traffic dump file, passes it through the tshark application and then displays the resulting DNS packet flows in a "flow-diagram" image. dnspktflow can output a single image or a series of images which can then be shown in sequence as an animation.
dnspktflow was written as a debugging utility to help trace DNS queries and responses, especially as they apply to DNSSEC-enabled lookups.
Requirements
This application requires the following Perl modules and software components to work:
graphviz (http://www.graphviz.org/) GraphViz (Perl module) tshark (http://www.wireshark.org/)
The following is required for outputting screen presentations:
MagicPoint (http://member.wide.ad.jp/wg/mgp/)
If the following modules are installed, a GUI interface will be enabled for communication with dnspktflow:
QWizard (Perl module) Getopt::GUI::Long (Perl module)
Options
dnspktflow takes a wide variety of command-line options. These options are described below in the following functional groups: input packet selection, output file options, output visualization options, graphical options, and debugging.
Input Packet Selection
These options determine the packets that will be selected by dnspktflow.
- -i STRING
- --ignore-hosts=STRING
A regular expression of host names to ignore in the query/response fields.
- -r STRING
- --only-hosts=STRING
A regular expression of host names to analyze in the query/response fields.
- -f
- --show-frame-num
Display the packet frame numbers.
- -b INTEGER
- --begin-frame=INTEGER
Begin at packet frame NUMBER.
Output File Options
These options determine the type and location of dnspktflow's output.
- -o STRING
- --output-file=STRING
Output file name (default: out%03d.png as PNG format.)
- --fig
Output format should be fig.
- -O STRING
- --tshark-out=STRING
Save tshark output to this file.
- -m
- --multiple-outputs
One picture per request (use
%03din the filename.)- -M STRING
- --magic-point=STRING
Saves a MagicPoint presentation for the output.
Output Visualization Options
These options determine specifics of dnspktflow's output.
- --layout-style
Selects the graphviz layout style to use (dot, neato, twopi, circo, or fdp).
- -L
- --last-line-labels-only
Only show data on the last line drawn.
- -z INTEGER
- --most-lines=INTEGER
Only show at most INTEGER connections.
- -T
- --input-is-tshark-out
The input file is already processed by tshark.
Graphical Options
These options determine fields included in dnspktflow's output.
- -t
- --show-type
Shows message type in result image.
- -q
- --show-queries
Shows query questions in result image.
- -a
- --show-answers
Shows query answers in result image.
- -A
- --show-authoritative
Shows authoritative information in result image.
- -x
- --show-additional
Shows additional information in result image.
- -l
- --show-label-lines
Shows lines attaching labels to lines.
- --fontsize=INTEGER
Font Size
Debugging
These options may assist in debugging dnspktflow.
- -d
- --dump-pkts
Dump data collected from the packets.
- -h
- --help
Show help for command line options.
Copyright
Copyright 2004-2013 SPARTA, Inc. All rights reserved. See the COPYING file included with the DNSSEC-Tools package for details.
Author
Wes Hardaker <hardaker@users.sourceforge.net>
See Also
Getopt::GUI::Long(3) Net::DNS(3) QWizard.pm(3)