ICMP packet sniffing not receiving any data (Black Hat Python Book)

Question

I came across this code snippet from the book, Black hat Python , Chapter 3. The Network: Raw Sockets and Sniffing:

import socket
import os

host = "x.x.x.x"        # Host to listen on

# Create a raw socket and bind it to the public interface
if os.name == "nt":
    socket_protocol = socket.IPPROTO_IP
else:
    socket_protocol = socket.IPPROTO_ICMP
    
sniffer = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_RAW, socket_protocol)
sniffer.bind((host, 0))
sniffer.setsockopt(socket.IPPROTO_IP, socket.IP_HDRINCL, 1)     # We want the IP headers included in the capture
# if we're using Windows, we need to send an IOCTL
# to set up promiscuous mode
if os.name == "nt":
    sniffer.ioctl(socket.SIO_RCVALL, socket.RCVALL_ON)
print(sniffer.recvfrom(65565))      # Read in a single packet

# If we're using Windows, turn off promiscuous mode
if os.name == "nt":
    sniffer.ioctl(socket.SIO_RCVALL, socket.RCVALL_OFF)

And when I do ping google.com the above code is supposed to capture the first ping packet, but instead waits for the packet indefinitely in the line print(sniffer.recvfrom(65565)) .

I tried with host as my machine's local ip and with localhost, and tried changing the buffer size as seen in a similar question . But it did not good.

I works when I set host = "" and do ping 127.0.0.1 , but not when I ping other urls.

Can somebody please tell me what is wrong?

I am using Python 3.8.2 and Ubuntu 18.04.

Answer 1

The issue is not actually with the code, it is a compatibility issue, pinging the more modern servers are done by IPv6 , while the code picks only IPv4 ICMP packets. An easy solution will be to restrict the ping to IPv4 by:

ping -4 google.com

The sniffer for IPv6 only requires small changes form the IPv4 version, it is as follows:

import socket
import os

host = ""       # Host to listen on

# Create a raw socket and bind it to the public interface
if os.name == "nt":
    socket_protocol = socket.IPPROTO_IPV6
else:
    socket_protocol = socket.IPPROTO_ICMPV6
    
sniffer = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET6, socket.SOCK_RAW, socket_protocol)
sniffer.bind((host, 0))
sniffer.setsockopt(socket.IPPROTO_IPV6, socket.IP_HDRINCL, 1)       # We want the IP headers included in the capture
# if we're using Windows, we need to send an IOCTL
# to set up promiscuous mode
if os.name == "nt":
    sniffer.ioctl(socket.SIO_RCVALL, socket.RCVALL_ON)
print(sniffer.recvfrom(65565))      # Read in a single packet

# If we're using Windows, turn off promiscuous mode
if os.name == "nt":
    sniffer.ioctl(socket.SIO_RCVALL, socket.RCVALL_OFF)