Couldn't activate capture: socket: Address family not supported by protocol

[savanpatidar1576gmilcom]

Environment

• Platform: Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
• WSL Distribution: Ubuntu
• sngrep version: sngrep - 1.8.3

Description

I have installed sngrep inside my Ubuntu environment on Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).
When I try to run sngrep, I get the following error message:

Couldn't activate capture: socket: Address family not supported by protocol

Steps to Reproduce

1. Install sngrep inside Ubuntu on WSL
2. Run sngrep from the terminal

Expected Behavior
sngrep should start and capture SIP packets (or at least show the interface selection).

Actual Behavior
It fails to start and shows the error mentioned above.

Additional Notes
I have tried installing libpcap using:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install libpcap-dev

Any suggestions or workarounds would be appreciated.

[Kaian]

Hi @savanpatidar1576gmilcom!

Have you tried other libpcap tools like tcpdump or ngrep? Just to check if this is a problem related with libpcap itself in WSL

Thanks for a well-formatted bug report! :)

[savanpatidar1576gmilcom]

@Kaian
Thank you for your reply.

I tried testing with tcpdump as suggested.
I got the same error message:

tcpdump: socket: Address family not supported by protocol

[Kaian]

Hi!

Then this is probably a problem in libpcap rather than the tools using the library.

It could be related to the kernel being used in WSL, not sure, as I am not a Windows user.

According to this https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/2538 it's fixed in WSL2, in case that information rings a bell.

Best regards!

[savanpatidar1576gmilcom]

@Kaian
Thanks for your help! After upgrading from WSL 1 to WSL 2, sngrep is now working perfectly.