Network Debugging
This page provides information on debugging network related issues on the Linux® microPlatform (LmP).
Using tcpdump
The LmP base image includes a tcpdump binary at /usr/sbin/tcpdump.
This is used for capturing traffic and diagnosing issues.
Note that /usr/sbin is not part of the PATH environment for the base image user, and you must run tcpdump as root.
Capturing Bluetooth 6lo Network Traffic
If your LmP device is acting as a gateway to IoT devices connected via a Bluetooth link, you may want to restrict the capture to the traffic exchanged between those IoT devices.
To do this, use -i bt0 when invoking tcpdump:
$ sudo /usr/sbin/tcpdump -i bt0
Note that if you only have one such device, the network interface will be torn down by the kernel if the Bluetooth link is lost.
When that happens, you’ll see a message like this from tcpdump:
tcpdump: pcap_loop: The interface went down
If you want to continue to capture traffic on bt0 for a Bluetooth device that resets and reconnects,
have another device remain connected to your LmP gateway for the duration of the capture.
Capturing LAN Network Traffic
If you’re using Ethernet, use -i eth0 to view traffic exchanged with the rest of the LAN:
$ sudo /usr/sbin/tcpdump -i eth0
You can use -i wlan0 for wireless traffic.
Other Network Interfaces
To view a complete list of network interfaces you can use with the -i option, run:
$ ip link show
One of these may be useful to capture traffic on a network device created for use with containers.
Capturing to a File
It can be convenient to capture traffic in a file for later analysis, such as with Wireshark.
Using -w file.pcap when invoking tcpdump will save to a file named file.pcap.
For example, to capture traffic exchanged over the bt0 interface to a file bt0.pcap:
$ sudo /usr/sbin/tcpdump -i bt0 -w bt0.pcap
To capture to file and view the text simultaneously, use a pipeline like this:
$ sudo /usr/sbin/tcpdump -i bt0 -U -w - | tee bt0.pcap | sudo /usr/sbin/tcpdump -r -