Termshark
Termshark is a terminal based network protocol analyzer. It allows you to inspect network traffic and analyze packets, similar to Wireshark, but runs in a terminal instead of a graphical interface.
terminal
network
protocol
analyzer
packets
cli
Termshark: Terminal Based Network Protocol Analyzers
Inspect network traffic and analyze packets with Termshark, a command-line alternative to Wireshark for terminal-based packet analysis.
What is Termshark?
Termshark is a powerful network protocol analyzer that runs entirely in your terminal. It provides functionality similar to the popular Wireshark tool but without requiring an X Window environment. Just like Wireshark, Termshark allows you to capture packets in real-time, filter them based on various criteria, inspect protocol data, extract files from flows, and export captures.
Some key features of Termshark include:
- Supports common capture interfaces like pcap and afpacket
- Filters packets with Berkeley Packet Filter syntax
- Colorizes packets based on protocols for easy readability
- Parses details of popular protocols like HTTP, DNS, SSL/TLS, and many more
- Allows extraction of files and certificates from packet flows
- Capable of reading packet captures from Wireshark and tcpdump
Termshark is ideal for probing network traffic in servers, routers, IoT devices, and other non-desktop environments where running Wireshark is inconvenient. The text-based interface allows it to run on anything that supports a terminal, including remote SSH sessions. While not as full-featured as Wireshark, Termshark provides powerful inspection capabilities out-of-the-box in an easy-to-use terminal application.
Termshark Features
Features
- Captures live packet data from network interfaces
- Displays packets in a terminal user interface
- Filters packets using display filters
- Analyzes protocols including TCP, UDP, HTTP, DNS, and more
- Supports common capture file formats like PCAP and PCAPNG
- Runs natively in Linux terminal without a GUI
- Built on top of TShark and Wireshark libraries
Pricing
- Open Source
Pros
Lightweight terminal-based interface
No GUI overhead or dependencies
Works over SSH connections
Fast and responsive for analyzing live captures
Powerful display filters
Leverages Wireshark protocol analysis
Cons
Less intuitive than GUI-based Wireshark
Steeper learning curve for terminal usage
Limited to keyboard-based interaction
Harder to visualize packet flows
No built-in statistical summaries
Official Links
The Best Termshark Alternatives
Top Network & Admin and Network Monitoring and other similar apps like Termshark
Here are some alternatives to Termshark:
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