jNetStream project has been on hold for a while now. So I wanted to update what is going on. I've been working very heavily on jNetPcap, a sister project over last 6 months. I have added significant capabilities to jNetPcap that were originally intended for jnetstream. Specifically protocol decoding is now done in jnetpcap, at low native layer. jNetPcap's header definitions are written in pure java with jnetpcap specific annotations. The header definitions are just as easy to write, if not easier, then they were in NPL. Since NPL is what has bogged down jNetStream for nearly 2 years now, I decided to abandon NPL language going forward. The capability will be replaced with jNetPcap header definitions. Here are some links to already existing jnetpcap header definitions to get a feel for what the java/annotated syntax looks like:

• Ethernet: Source, javadocs
• Ip4: Source, javadocs
• Tcp: Source, javadocs

Therefore jNetStream is going to be simply layered over jNetPcap and utilize its underlying decoding and analysis capabilities. jNetStream offers a clean OO API and file manipulation capabilities. It also adds support for multiple capture file formats, remote access, serialization, and many more high level features. jNetPcap is a low level capture API for libpcap/winpcap native libraries that now also provides packet decoding and protocol analysis at native level (written in C). This significant new capability will be fully utilized by jNetStream going forward. jNetStream will also enhance the decoding and analysis at a much higher programming layer. So in summary, the main changes that are coming are.

• Replace NPL with jNetPcap's java/annotated header definitions.
• Build jNetStream on jNetPcap's analysis and decoding framework.

jNetPcap will focus on low level portions of capturing, decoding and analysis process. jNetStream will add a significant additional layer with full object oriented API, multiple capture file formats, file manipulation and indexers and more advanced analysis. I'm finishing up jNetPcap version 1.2.rc5 this week. This is the last release that will have any new features added to it for a while. I will be polishing jNetPcap's API to production quality over next few months and adding new operating system platforms on which jNetPcap can run on. At the same time I will be integrating new jNetPcap capabilities into jNetStream and removing NPL support. The next major goal for jNetStream is release 3.0 alpha 2. It will contain the above mentioned capabilities and its a merger with jNetPcap and decoding/analysis framework.