Re: AIX build using BPF

[Guy Harris <guy () alum mit edu>]

On Nov 4, 2003, at 5:08 PM, Dannis_Yang () candle com wrote:

> I download and built tcpdump 3.7.2 and libpcap 0.7.2 on AIX 4.3 using 
> BPF.
> The bpf_open() call failed with errno  6 No such device or address for
> device /dev/bpf0. However, if I just run once the tcpdump program came 
> with
> the OS in /usr/sbin directory then from that point on my built tcpdump 
> work
> without any problem. It seems that I must run the tcpdump came with 
> the AIX
> once every time system is IPL'ed.

Welcome to the wonderful world of AIX.

The /dev/bpf devices appear to be removed, and not re-created, on a 
reboot.  AIX's tcpdump appears to load the BPF driver if it's not 
already loaded and create the devices if they don't already exist.

The 3.7.2 tcpdump and 0.7.2 libpcap don't do that, so you have to run 
some other program to load the driver and create the devices after a 
reboot.

The current CVS version of tcpdump.org libpcap, however, includes code 
from Shaun Clowes to load the driver and create the devices, so tcpdump 
- or any other program built with the current CVS version of libpcap - 
will, when asked to capture, load the driver and create the devices if 
necessary (and if run by root - other users probably don't have 
permission to do so).

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