Tkinter window freezes when sniffing with scapy

Question

import tkinter as tk
import random
import scapy.all as scapy

result = ""

def getmac(ip):
    arplayer = scapy.ARP(pdst=ip)
    etherlayer = scapy.Ether(dst="ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff")
    packet = etherlayer/arplayer
    answeredList = scapy.srp(packet, timeout=2, verbose = False)[0]
    return answeredList[0][1].hwsrc

def sniff():
    scapy.sniff(store=False, prn=checkattack)

def checkattack(packet):
    try:
        if packet.haslayer(scapy.ARP) and packet[scapy.ARP].op == 2:
            realmac = getmac(packet[scapy.ARP].psrc)
            rspmac = packet[scapy.ARP].hwsrc
            if realmac != rspmac:
                result = "WARNING"
    except IndexError:
        pass

GUI = tk.Tk()

GUI.title("NETWORK GUARDIAN")

GUI.geometry("600x500")

# === labels ===
label1 = tk.Label(text="> Welcome to the NETWORK GUARDIAN !", font=("Times", 11))
label1.grid(column = 0, row = 0)

label2 = tk.Label(text = result, font=("Arial Black", 15))
label2.grid(column = 0, row = 3)

# === buttons ===
button1 = tk.Button(text="Scan for attacks", command = sniff)
button1.grid(column = 0, row = 2)

GUI.mainloop()

I have this arp spoofing tool made with scapy, but I am trying to display the results in a nicely way by using tkinter. The problem is that when I press the button to scan for possible attacks the window freezes. I guess this happens because the sniff() function is a long-running function. Can someone help me to make this work the right way?

Answer 1

Maybe you could try the threading module to keep it from interrupting the tkinter loop? The syntax is something like this

import threading 
sniffThread = threading.thread(target=sniff)
sniffThread.run()
sniffThread.stop()