tcpdump: out.pcap: Permission denied
Solution 1:
i tried on Centos 5, still the same even on tmp or root folder. from the tcpdump man page, privileges are dropped when used with -Z option (enabled by default) before opening first savefile. because you specified "-C 1", the permission denied occur because of the file size already reached 1, and when create new file it will raise an permission denied error. so just specify the -Z user
# strace tcpdump -i eth0 -n -w out.pcap -C 1
fstat(4, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=903, ...}) = 0
mmap(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x2aea31934000
lseek(4, 0, SEEK_CUR) = 0
read(4, "root:x:0:root\nbin:x:1:root,bin,d"..., 4096) = 903
read(4, "", 4096) = 0
close(4) = 0
munmap(0x2aea31934000, 4096) = 0
setgroups(1, [77]) = 0
setgid(77) = 0
setuid(77) = 0
setsockopt(3, SOL_SOCKET, SO_ATTACH_FILTER, "\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\310\357k\0\0\0\0\0", 16) = 0
fcntl(3, F_GETFL) = 0x2 (flags O_RDWR)
fcntl(3, F_SETFL, O_RDWR|O_NONBLOCK) = 0
recvfrom(3, 0x7fff9563d35f, 1, 32, 0, 0) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
fcntl(3, F_SETFL, O_RDWR) = 0
setsockopt(3, SOL_SOCKET, SO_ATTACH_FILTER, "\1\0\17\0\0\0\0\0P\327\233\7\0\0\0\0", 16) = 0
open("out.pcap", O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC, 0666) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
write(2, "tcpdump: ", 9tcpdump: ) = 9
write(2, "out.pcap: Permission denied", 27out.pcap: Permission denied) = 27
write(2, "\n", 1
) = 1
exit_group(1) = ?
you can see the strace result above, tcpdump dropped the privileges into user and group pcap (77).
# grep 77 /etc/group
pcap:x:77:
# grep 77 /etc/passwd
pcap:x:77:77::/var/arpwatch:/sbin/nologin
From tcpdump man page, -C
# man tcpdump
-C Before writing a raw packet to a savefile, check whether the file is currently larger than file_size and, if so,
close the current savefile and open a new one. Savefiles after the first savefile will have the name specified
with the -w flag, with a number after it, starting at 1 and continuing upward. The units of file_size are mil-
lions of bytes (1,000,000 bytes, not 1,048,576 bytes).
**Note that when used with -Z option (enabled by default), privileges are dropped before opening first savefile.**
# tcpdump --help
tcpdump version 3.9.4
libpcap version 0.9.4
Usage: tcpdump [-aAdDeflLnNOpqRStuUvxX] [-c count] [ -C file_size ]
[ -E algo:secret ] [ -F file ] [ -i interface ] [ -M secret ]
[ -r file ] [ -s snaplen ] [ -T type ] [ -w file ]
[ -W filecount ] [ -y datalinktype ] [ -Z user ]
[ expression ]
Specify specific user with -Z user
# tcpdump -i eth0 -n -w out.pcap -C 1 -Z root
tcpdump: listening on eth0, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 96 bytes
35 packets captured
35 packets received by filter
0 packets dropped by kernel
Solution 2:
Try to run the command from /tmp or any other world writable directory. I remember having issues with tcpdump in directories which are not world writable, I have no clue why -:)
cd /tmp
tcpdump -i p3p1 -n -w out.pcap -C 16
Solution 3:
Your tcpdump is dropping privileges to the 'tcpdump' user, check the man page ("-Z tcpdump" is the default, and the tcpdump user doesn't have permissions to write in root's homedir). As Daniel T. told you, run your capture in a world-writable directory like /tmp, or at least a directory where you've given either the user or group 'tcpdump' write permissions.
Solution 4:
When I ran into this Permission denied issue it turned out to be that I was putting a .cap extension on the file instead of .pcap. As RichL pointed out in the comments, AppArmor profile on Ubuntu /etc/apparmor.d/usr.sbin.tcpdump causes this.
# uname -a ; lsb_release -a
Linux bidder-lb4 3.2.0-76-virtual #111-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jan 13 22:33:42 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS
Release: 12.04
Codename: precise
Solution 5:
Is SELinux running? Check by typing is terminal:
/usr/sbin/getenforce
If it says Enforcing, you can try disabling SELinux and trying the tcpdump again, to see if SE was stopping it.