Introduction
The setup

Introduction

This guide will help you set up your remote VSCode instance to connect to the class server, and then adjust it so that you can use to develop with libpcap. Code completion features should be working at the end of this tutorial.

The setup

To help out with coding in C with libpcap, I have figured out a way to configure VSCode’s IntelliSense to grab definitions and symbols for the networking header files, which would be helpful for you in developing the files.

First, install the Visual Studio Code Remote - SSH extension in your local VSCode instance. You can find it by searching for ssh in your extensions marketplace, it will show up right towards the top.

Then, follow the instructions in the section Connect to a remote host in the VSCode documentation.

Once the window loads (it will ask a few questions and might prompt you for your password if you have not set up your keys yet), open a new folder, and navigate to the root of your labs repository. Once it loads, you should your usual file navigator on the left-hand side and you can open any of your files.

If you open any of the .c file, VSCode will go frantic and give you so many errors; we need a few configurations yet.

First, install the C/C++ and C/C++ Extension packs from the VSCode extension marketplace (simply look them up and hit install) and then reload your window.

Second, create a new folder in the root of your repo (i.e., in netsec-labs-username) and call it .vscode (the . is necessary). In that directory, create a new file called c_cpp_properties.json and dump the following in it:

  {
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "Linux",
            "includePath": [
                "${workspaceFolder}/**",
                "/usr/include",
                "/usr/include/**",
                "${workspaceFolder}/lab2/volumes/src/nslib"
            ],
            "compilerPath": "/usr/bin/gcc",
            "cStandard": "c99",
            "intelliSenseMode": "linux-gcc-x64",
            "mergeConfigurations": true,
            "defines": [
              "_GNU_SOURCE",
              "__USE_MISC"
            ],
            "browse": {
              "path": [
                "/usr/include",
                "/usr/include/**",
                "${workspaceFolder}"
              ],
              "limitSymbolsToIncludedHeaders": true,
              "databaseFilename": "${workspaceFolder}/.vscode/browse.vc.db"
            }
        }
    ],
    "version": 4
  }

After that, give your .c files a moment to reload, and all the errors should disappear. You should also be able to get code completion and all the perks.

Table of contents

Introduction

The setup