Packet capture on wireless network (libpcap)

Question

I have a small home network that I would like to analyze and capture the traffic on. What are my options for doing this? Ultimately, I would like to use a packet capture library, such as libpcap, to sniff the network in real-time as my router receives packets. I'm mainly interested in HTTP traffic. Thus far, when I run my program, I only seem to be able to see packets sourced or destined to my machine. Is there a way that I may inspect any traffic that travels through my wireless modem/router?

From the research I've done, it seems that the only way this is possible is through ARP poisoning or using a CISCO router that features Embedded Packet Capture.

Has anyone tried either of these and how successful were you? Are these my only options or is there something I may have overlooked?

Answer 1

Hi :) I think ARP poisoning and so on is not so easy to drop in.. ;) but you could start by trying one of the most famous network packets analyzer: Wireshark. Networking is very far to be easy.. :P but Wireshark will help you a lot and, btw, supports also libcap. Hope that helps :)