Packet Inspector#

The packet inspector is a Minecraft proxy for viewing the contents of packets as they are sent/received. It uses Valence's protocol facilities to display packet contents. This was made for three purposes:

• Check that packets between Valence and client are matching your expectations.
• Check that packets between vanilla server and client are parsed correctly by Valence.
• Understand how the protocol works between the vanilla server and client.

Usage#

Firstly, we should have a server running that we're going to be proxying/inspecting.

cargo r -r --example game_of_life

Next up, we need to run the proxy server, To launch in a GUI environment, simply run packet_inspector.

cargo r -r -p packet_inspector

Then click the "Start Listening" button in the top left of the UI.

The client can now connect to localhost:25566. You should see packets streaming in on the GUI.

Quick start with Vanilla Server via Docker#

Start the server

docker run -e EULA=TRUE -e ONLINE_MODE=false -e ANNOUNCE_PLAYER_ACHIEVEMENTS=false -e GENERATE_STRUCTURES=false -e SPAWN_ANIMALS=false -e SPAWN_MONSTERS=false -e SPAWN_NPCS=false -e SPAWN_PROTECTION=0 -e VIEW_DISTANCE=16 -e MODE=creative -e LEVEL_TYPE=flat -e RCON_CMDS_STARTUP="gamerule doWeatherCycle false" -d -p 25565:25565 --name mc itzg/minecraft-server

View server logs

docker logs -f mc

Server Rcon

docker exec -i mc rcon-cli

In a separate terminal, start the packet inspector.

cargo r -r -p packet_inspector --no-default-features --features cli -- 127.0.0.1:25566 127.0.0.1:25565

Open Minecraft and connect to localhost:25566.

Clean up

docker stop mc
docker rm mc