Budget Network Analysis Suite: Challenges and Solutions for the Deployment of a Raspberry Pi as a Network Traffic Analysis Appliance

In recent years, we have witnessed what could be considered the advent of commodity singleboard computers. No one machine has dominated this segment of the market like the Raspberry Pi. In its latest iteration, the Raspberry Pi 4, we have been gifted with a piece of hardware that includes two network interfaces: a wired Ethernet port, and built-in 802.11 ac wireless connectivity. With this latest iteration, the Raspberry Pi 4 has shed its reputation for being relegated only to the “makers” for low-overhead Internet of Things deployments and solidified itself as an effective micro computing platform. Boasting not only the aforementioned wireless connectivity, but up to 4GB of ram, the Pi 4’s appears as though it could prove to be a costeffective tool in any information security professional’s arsenal. Therefore, this project explores the deployment of a Pi 4 as a traffic capture device as a means to perform network auditing. Over the course of two weeks, the Pi 4 performed a continuous packet capture of a local network consisting of a singular Google Home Mini. While this task would be trivial with a more traditional hardware configuration, such as a commodity notebook computer, there were several issues in just the configuration of the Raspberry Pi to even collect network packets. In truth, this configuration stage took more man hours than even the packet analysis stage, meaning that once one accounted for labor costs, it would be difficult to make a business case for purchasing a Pi 4 strictly for the purpose of packet capturing if more suitable hardware is already on hand.