CAPINFOS(1) CAPINFOS(1)
NAME
capinfos - Prints information about capture files
SYNOPSIS
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|--help
capinfos -v|--version
DESCRIPTION
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.
OPTIONS
-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
DIAGNOSTIC OPTIONS
--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.
EXAMPLES
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.
SEE ALSO
pcap(3), wireshark(1), mergecap(1), editcap(1), tshark(1), dumpcap(1),
captype(1), pcap-filter(7) or tcpdump(8)
NOTES
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.
AUTHORS
Original Author
Ian Schorr <ian[AT]ianschorr.com>
Contributors
Gerald Combs <gerald[AT]wireshark.org>
Jim Young <jyoung[AT]gsu.edu>
2025-06-10 CAPINFOS(1)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Tue Dec 16 06:32:07 CET 2025.