Useful tcpdump Commands

Tcpdump is a network debugging tool that runs under the command line. It allows the user to intercept and display TCP/UDP/IP and other packets being transmitted or received over a network to which the computer is attached. Running tcpdump by it’s self will begin recording traffic that is seen on the wire printing the output to the screen.

I found this list by @r_paranoid on their website Rationally Paranoid. Very Very useful set of tcpdump commands that can assist with troubleshooting and/or when a packet capture is needed.

See the list of interfaces on which tcpdump can listen:

tcpdump -D

Listen on interface eth0:

tcpdump -i eth0

Listen on any available interface (cannot be done in promiscuous mode. Requires Linux kernel 2.2 or greater):

tcpdump -i any

Be verbose while capturing packets:

tcpdump -v

Be more verbose while capturing packets:

tcpdump -vv

Be very verbose while capturing packets:

tcpdump -vvv

Be verbose and print the data of each packet in both hex and ASCII, excluding the link level header:

tcpdump -v -X

Be verbose and print the data of each packet in both hex and ASCII, also including the link level header:

tcpdump -v -XX

Be less verbose (than the default) while capturing packets:

tcpdump -q

Limit the capture to 100 packets:

tcpdump -c 100

Record the packet capture to a file called capture.cap:

tcpdump -w capture.cap

Record the packet capture to a file called capture.cap but display on-screen how many packets have been captured in real-time:

tcpdump -v -w capture.cap

Display the packets of a file called capture.cap:

tcpdump -r capture.cap

Display the packets using maximum detail of a file called capture.cap:

tcpdump -vvv -r capture.cap

Display IP addresses and port numbers instead of domain and service names when capturing packets (note: on some systems you need to specify -nn to display port numbers):

tcpdump -n

Capture any packets where the destination host is 192.168.1.1. Display IP addresses and port numbers:

tcpdump -n dst host 192.168.1.1

Capture any packets where the source host is 192.168.1.1. Display IP addresses and port numbers:

tcpdump -n src host 192.168.1.1

Capture any packets where the source or destination host is 192.168.1.1. Display IP addresses and port numbers:

tcpdump -n host 192.168.1.1

Capture any packets where the destination network is 192.168.1.0/24. Display IP addresses and port numbers:

tcpdump -n dst net 192.168.1.0/24

Capture any packets where the source network is 192.168.1.0/24. Display IP addresses and port numbers:

tcpdump -n src net 192.168.1.0/24

Capture any packets where the source or destination network is 192.168.1.0/24. Display IP addresses and port numbers:

tcpdump -n net 192.168.1.0/24

Capture any packets where the destination port is 23. Display IP addresses and port numbers:

tcpdump -n dst port 23

Capture any packets where the destination port is is between 1 and 1023 inclusive. Display IP addresses and port numbers:

tcpdump -n dst portrange 1-1023

Capture only TCP packets where the destination port is is between 1 and 1023 inclusive. Display IP addresses and port numbers:

tcpdump -n tcp dst portrange 1-1023

Capture only UDP packets where the destination port is is between 1 and 1023 inclusive. Display IP addresses and port numbers:

tcpdump -n udp dst portrange 1-1023

Capture any packets with destination IP 192.168.1.1 and destination port 23. Display IP addresses and port numbers:

tcpdump -n "dst host 192.168.1.1 and dst port 23"

Capture any packets with destination IP 192.168.1.1 and destination port 80 or 443. Display IP addresses and port numbers:

tcpdump -n "dst host 192.168.1.1 and (dst port 80 or dst port 443)"

Capture any ICMP packets:

tcpdump -v icmp

Capture any ARP packets:

tcpdump -v arp

Capture either ICMP or ARP packets:

tcpdump -v "icmp or arp"

Capture any packets that are broadcast or multicast:

tcpdump -n "broadcast or multicast"

Capture 500 bytes of data for each packet rather than the default of 68 bytes:

tcpdump -s 500

Capture all bytes of data within the packet:

tcpdump -s 0

Additionally cyberciti.biz has a great man page on tcpdump commands