Handling tcpdump output in python

Question

Im trying to handle tcpdump output in python.

What I need is to run tcpdump (which captures the packets and gives me information) and read the output and process it.

Answer 1

You can make tcpdump line-buffered with "-l". Then you can use subprocess to capture the output as it comes out.

import subprocess as sub

p = sub.Popen(('sudo', 'tcpdump', '-l'), stdout=sub.PIPE)
for row in iter(p.stdout.readline, b''):
    print row.rstrip()   # process here