PF_RING™ is a new type of network socket that dramatically improves the packet capture speed, and that’s characterized by the following properties:
- Available for Linux kernels 2.6.32 and newer.
- No need to patch the kernel: just load the kernel module.
- 10 Gbit Hardware Packet Filtering using commodity network adapters
- User-space ZC (new generation DNA, Direct NIC Access) drivers for extreme packet capture/transmission speed as the NIC NPU (Network Process Unit) is pushing/getting packets to/from userland without any kernel intervention. Using the 10Gbit ZC driver you can send/received at wire-speed at any packet sizes.
- PF_RING ZC library for distributing packets in zero-copy across threads, applications, Virtual Machines.
- Device driver independent.
- Support of Accolade, Exablaze, Endace, Fiberblaze, Inveatech, Mellanox, Myricom/CSPI, Napatech, Netcope and Intel (ZC) network adapters.
- Kernel-based packet capture and sampling.
- Libpcap support (see below) for seamless integration with existing pcap-based applications.
- Ability to specify hundred of header filters in addition to BPF.
- Content inspection, so that only packets matching the payload filter are passed.
- PF_RING™ plugins for advanced packet parsing and content filtering.