pkts

pkts - create, decode and modify network packet layers

pkts provides ergonomic, no-std-friendly APIs for handling packets from a diverse range of network protocols. It provides intuitive abstractions for handling packets that span multiple protocol layers, and aims to be as easy to use as scapy (a Python packet parsing framework) while also offering performant zero-allocation APIs suitable for embedded networking firmware. unsafe code is explicitly forbidden in the library, but we're well aware this doesn't guarantee the absence of potential Denial of Service threat vectors via panics; as such, we're working on integrating both fuzzing and symbolic model checking to test the correctness of packet parsing implementations.

For those looking for packet capture/transmission functionality (similar to what libpcap or scapy offer), the rscap crate provides cross-platform and rust-native APIs for such that integrate well with pkts.

Features

Robust APIs for building/modifying packets: pkts provides simple operations to combine various layers into a single packet, and to index into a different layers of a packet to retrieve or modify fields. Users of scapy may find the API surprisingly familiar, especially for layer composition and indexing operations:

use layers::{ip::Ipv4, tcp::Tcp};

let pkt = Ip::new() / Tcp::new();
pkt[Tcp].set_sport(80);
pkt[Tcp].set_dport(12345);

no-std Compatible: every packet type in the pkts crate can be used without the standard library, and a special LayerRef type can be used to access raw packet bytes without any allocations. Packets can additionally be constructed from scratch in no-std environments using allocation-free Builder patterns.
Packet defragmentation/reordering: In some protocols, packets may be fragmented (such as IPv4) or arrive out-of-order (TCP, SCTP, etc.). pkts overcomes both of these issues through Sequence types that transparently handle defragmentation and reordering. Sequence types can even be stacked so that application-layer data can easily be reassembled from captured packets. They even work in no-std environments with or without an allocator.
Stateful packet support: Many network protocols are stateful, and interpreting packets from such protocols can be difficult (if not impossible) to accomplish unless information about the protocol session is stored. pkts provides Session types that handle these kinds of packets--Sessions ensure that packets are validated based on the current expected state of the protocol. Just like Sequencetypes, Session types are compatible with no-std/no-alloc environments.

Dependency Policy

Like other crates managed by pkts.org, pkts aims to rely on a minimal set of dependencies that are vetted and well-used in the Rust ecosystem. As such, pkts makes use of only the following dependencies:

bitflags - Provides a simple, clean interface for accessing and modifying bitfields in packets. Used extensively in the rust ecosystem (e.g. by rustix, openssl, bindgen, etc.)
pkts-macros - Procedural macros used by pkts; nested dependencies are only syn and quote.
pkts-common - Shared data types/methods for pkts and other crates; no nested dependencies.

We do not plan on adding in any additional dependencies to pkts in future releases, with the exception of submodule libraries that break off individual pieces of functionality from pkts and are maintained by pkts.org.

License

This project is licensed under either of

at your option.

Contributing

pkts is open to contribution--feel free to submit an issue or pull request if there's something you'd like to add to the library.