network monitoring on windows mobile 6

Question

I am currently trying to write a network monitoring software for windows mobile 6. I googled a lot and some people say that it is not possible to use a NDIS driver or WinPcap or so for monitoring any network interface. Others say that it is possible. Fact is, that I found no exaples, nor any sourcecode on the net.

Therefore I ask this community: Is it possible to write a packet capturing tool that works on data-link layer for windows mobile in C or C#?

with best regards

Answer 1

Desktop and Server Windows products have a very defined, generic, and pluggable structure into which you can insert hooks into the network layer. (Look up LSP or Layered Service Provider - this is how AntiVirus/Firewall programs plug themselves into monitoring your network traffic). As far as WinPCap, it plugs in one level lower at the NDIS driver level, but regardless, Windows Mobile just is not nearly as flexible when it comes to this. I don't necessarily think it's just Microsoft being short-sighted here, though - it takes much more power to provide a generic and pluggable LSP or NDIS layer that most mobile devices just can't afford.

The most important point here - NDIS Packet Capturing is not supported for Windows Mobile . Closest you can get to a mobile platform with packet capture is Windows Embedded CE.

So, in order to capture network traffic for Windows Mobile you would need to develop your own NDIS driver framework. Not a small task.

Answer 2

Windows Mobile uses Windows CE.

NDIS is very much present on Windows Mobile, so you can write an intermediate driver to capture traffic.

However, it already has netlog which should do the work for you: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms883126.aspx