Stripping Kismetdb packet data

This tool is available as part of Kismet when built from source, or in the kismet-logtools package, as of 2019-02.

Packet data

Kismet stores packets as binary data in the kismetdb log file.

Packet data can be invaluable for processing log files - but it can also take up space, and reveal sensitive information. Before sharing a packet log (for instance with future sites which accept kismetdb logs directly), you should strip the packet content.

The kismetdb_strip_packets tool will retain all metadata - MAC addresses, signal, and location - but will erase the contents of the packets.

$ kismetdb_strip_packets --in some-kismet-file.kismet --out some-other-file.kismet

Export options

There are several optional parameters you can use when exporting a JSON file:

• --verbose Add more status output to the console while kismetdb_strip_packets runs.

• --force By default, kismetdb_strip_packets will not overwrite the target file if it exists already. --force will cause it to clobber the destination.

• --skip-clean By default, kismetdb_strip_packets runs a SQL Vacuum command to optimize the database and clean up any journal files. Skipping this process will save time on larger captures.