Listening outside ipfw / program interface to ipfw

[Jeremie Le Hen]

> Hi,
>    Two quick questions that I can't seem to find answers for using google.
> 
> 1) is is possible to listen outside an ipfw firewall - that is have 
> ethereal record the packets before ipfw starts dropping them? If so how?

tcpdump(8) uses the bpf(4) device and the latter will always see a
packet reaching the box whether a packet filter will drop it or not.

> 2) Is there an api to ipfw that will let me manipulate rules, query 
> stats etc?  I need something faster than running the command line binary?

Yes, you should look at the ``SEE ALSO'' section in ipfw(8) manual page.
ipfirewall(4) is what you are looking for, but looking at ipfw(8)
source code might help too.

Regards,
-- 
Jeremie Le Hen
jeremie at le-hen.org