[Edu-sig] ports

[Jeremy Hylton]

I think tcpdump and libpcap are the right place to start.  The latter
is a portable library for low-level network monitoring.  See
http://www.tcpdump.org/.  I imagine it would be fairly easy to write a
Python interface on top, probably using SWIG.

Richard Stevens Unix Network Programming (or whatever the newest
edition is called) is a good reference on these sorts of networking
details. 

There is still a security problem.  Capturing packets or using raw IP
sockets, e.g. for sending ping or traceroute probe packets, requires
setuid root programs on all (or nearly all) Unix systems.  It is hard
and inconvenient to write scripts that are setuid.

If someone is still interested in this project, get in touch with me.
I might be willing to lend a hand.

Jeremy

PS Why are we talking about this on the edu-sig?  Is it a potential
student project?  If not, it probably makes sense to take the
discussion elsewhere -- comp.lang.python?