AWS EC2 Server Setup Guide for PCAP-to-JSON Processor

This guide details the steps to configure an AWS EC2 instance (Ubuntu/Debian-based) to host the Node.js API for PCAP processing and serve the resulting JSON files via Apache over HTTPS.

The node server we will host will allow us to do the following:

• Upload a PCAP file using the /upload endpoint. This returns a jobId.
• Use the jobId to download the JSON file at: https://pcap-results.yourdomain.com/results/JOB_ID.json
• Optional: Check the conversion status via the /status/:jobId endpoint.

sequenceDiagram
    participant Client
    participant Server

    Client->>Server: POST /upload (PCAP File)
    Server-->>Client: 200 OK, jobId: <jobId>

    alt Check Status
        Client->>Server: GET /status/<jobId>
        Server-->>Client: 200 OK, status: <status>
    end

    Client->>Server: GET /results/<jobId>.json
    Server-->>Client: 200 OK, (JSON Data)

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A simple Android app (Kotlin Compose) was built to demonstrate the use of this server. You can find it here: https://github.com/ganainy/pcap-to-json-with-aws-android-app

Why not implement the functionality directly in the app? Offloading PCAP processing to a server is beneficial for several reasons:

• Complexity and C code: PCAP parsing is a complex task that often relies on libraries written in C or C++. Integrating and managing these libraries within an Android (Kotlin/Java) app can be challenging. Maintaining and ensuring the portability of native code introduces considerable complexity and overhead.
• Reduced device load and battery consumption: Processing PCAP files directly on device can be time and resource-intensive.

Prerequisites:

• A running AWS EC2 instance (Ubuntu/Debian recommended).
• SSH access to the instance with sudo privileges.
• The public IP address of the instance.
• A registered domain name (e.g., yourdomain.com).
• Access to your DNS provider to manage domain records.

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Setup Guide:
A step-by-step guide to implement this on your AWS server can be found here.