mcp-wireshark

mcp-wireshark is a Python-based MCP server that exposes Wireshark/tshark functionality to MCP-compatible AI clients. It can run live packet capture, read/analyze .pcap/.pcapng files, apply display filters, follow TCP/UDP streams, and export analysis results (e.g., JSON) via defined MCP tools.

Evaluated Mar 30, 2026 (22d ago)

Repo ↗ Infrastructure mcp wireshark tshark network-analysis pcap packet-capture python security-monitoring

⚙ Agent Friendliness

/ 100

Can an agent use this?

🔒 Security

/ 100

Is it safe for agents?

⚡ Reliability

/ 100

Does it work consistently?

Score Breakdown

⚙ Agent Friendliness

MCP Quality

Documentation

Error Messages

Auth Simplicity

Rate Limits

🔒 Security

TLS Enforcement

Auth Strength

Scope Granularity

Dep. Hygiene

Secret Handling

No authentication/authorization is described for the MCP server; exposing it to untrusted networks could be risky. It relies on external binaries (tshark/wireshark) and privileged capture permissions (e.g., wireshark group), which increases operational/security considerations. TLS/auth at the transport layer are not documented (MCP typically depends on client/server configuration). Secret handling is not discussed; configuration examples show env PATH overrides but no secret management guidance.

⚡ Reliability

Uptime/SLA

Version Stability

Breaking Changes

Error Recovery

Best When

Used in a developer/admin workflow where an operator can install dependencies (tshark) and run the MCP server locally or within a controlled network environment.

Avoid When

Avoid exposing the MCP server broadly to untrusted networks or multi-tenant environments without additional access controls; avoid running it as a privileged process when only offline analysis is needed.

Use Cases

• Investigate network incidents by capturing or analyzing packet traces
• Help AI agents summarize pcaps and extract protocol-specific stats
• Extract TCP/UDP stream payloads for further analysis
• Convert packet data into structured JSON for downstream automation

Not For

• Use in environments where running tshark/wireshark binaries is disallowed
• Use cases requiring strong authentication/authorization for the MCP endpoint
• Large-scale always-on production traffic analytics without performance/operational planning

Interface

REST API

GraphQL

gRPC

MCP Server

Yes

SDK

Webhooks

Authentication

OAuth: No Scopes: No

No authentication mechanism is described in the README; access is likely controlled by local process/network exposure of the MCP server and the host permissions.

Pricing

Free tier: No

Requires CC: No

The package is distributed as a Python package (MIT license) and does not describe any paid service tiers in the provided content.

Agent Metadata

Pagination

none

Idempotent

False

Retry Guidance

Not documented

Known Gotchas

⚠ Requires tshark to be installed and on PATH (or configured) before tools will function
⚠ Live capture may require OS permissions (e.g., wireshark group membership on Linux)
⚠ Processing large pcaps/long captures can be slow or resource-intensive; agents should limit capture duration/filter scope

Alternatives

Wireshark GUI/CLI (tshark) directly with scripts Other MCP servers or wrappers around network analysis tools (if available) Python libraries for packet parsing (e.g., scapy) for limited parsing needs

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Scores are editorial opinions as of 2026-03-30.