# Falco Events

This plugin is a bridge between [Falco plugins](https://github.com/falcosecurity/plugins/) and Wireshark, so that Falco plugins can be used as dissectors.
It requires [libsinsp and libscap](https://github.com/falcosecurity/libs/).

## Building the Falco Events plugin

1. Download and compile [libsinsp and libscap](https://github.com/falcosecurity/libs/).
   You will probably want to pass `-DMINIMAL_BUILD=ON -DCREATE_TEST_TARGETS=OFF` to cmake.

1. Configure Wireshark with

```
cmake \
    -DSINSP_INCLUDEDIR=/path/to/falcosecurity-libs \
    -DSINSP_LIBDIR=/path/to/falcosecurity-libs/ \
    -DFALCO_PLUGIN_DIR="$WIRESHARK_BASE_DIR/wireshark-x64-libs/falcosecurity-plugins-2026-03-16-2-arm64-ws"
    -DFALCO_PLUGINS="cloudtrail.dll;gcpaudit.dll;k8saudit.dll"
    -DFALCO_PLUGIN_DLLS="libunwind.dll"
    [other cmake args]
```

$WIRESHARK_BASE_DIR should be replaced with your third party library prefix as described in the Wireshark Developer's Guide.

## Quick Start

1. Create a directory named "falco" one level above the "epan" plugin folder.
You can find the global and per-user plugin folder locations on your system in About → Folders or in the [User's Guide](https://www.wireshark.org/docs/wsug_html_chunked/ChPluginFolders.html).

1. Build your desired [Falco plugin](https://github.com/falcosecurity/plugins/) and place it in the "falco" plugin directory.

## Conversations

Falco plugins can mark individual fields with a conversation flag (EPF_CONVERSATION).
The Falco Events dissector treats each of these as separate conversations, and for features such as navigation and packet list marking, the _first_ conversation field is used for matching packets.

## Licensing

libsinsp and libscap are released under the Apache 2.0 license.
They depend on the following libraries:

- b64: MIT
- c-ares: MIT
- curl: MIT
- GRPC: Apache 2.0
- jq: MIT
- JsonCpp: MIT
- LuaJIT: MIT
- OpenSSL < 3.0: SSLeay
- OpenSSL >= 3.0 : Apache 2.0
- Protobuf: BSD-3-Clause
- oneTBB: Apache 2.0
- zlib: zlib

Wireshark is released under the GPL version 2 (GPL-2.0-or-later). It and the Apache-2.0 license are compatible via the "any later version" provision in the GPL version 2.
As discussed at https://lists.wireshark.org/archives/wireshark-dev/202203/msg00020.html, combining Wireshark and libsinsp+libscap should be OK, but that in effect invokes the GPLv2's "any later version" provision, making the Wireshark portion of the combined work GPLv3+.

Debian would appear to concur: https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2014/08/msg00102.html.

No version of the GPL is compatible with the SSLeay license; you must ensure that libsinsp+libscap is linked with OpenSSL 3.0 or later.
