According to Dataminer Installation Guide WinPcap is a required software. The problem is that WinPcap is no longer updated and maintained and that is a security concern. Last update is from 2013.
WinPcap refers to Npcap as a possible replacement.
What is WinPcap used for in Dataminer and is there plans for a replacement?
Could WinPcap installation be skipped and manually install Npcap, has it been tested?
The only way in which DataMiner uses WinPcap is to inject Gratuitous ARP packages directly on the network when a Failover switch is done. This sends out an extra announcement about the Virtual IP address now being linked to another MAC address/machine than before, forcing ARP caches to be updated.
Skipping the WinPcap install will not break DataMiner. You'll see an error message in the logfiles during Failover switches about not being able to call it, and it might take a bit longer for the Virtual IP address to be reachable.
Npcap is compatible with WinPcap. As far as I can see, installing Npcap manually works.
We do have a number of tasks on the backlog to replace WinPcap by Npcap (both in the installer and software)
We have a customer asking pretty much the same question as above so looking to find out if there has been any progress on the replacment of WinPcap as the original question here is now over two years old.
Just for clarity this is the question from our customer
“I wanted to ask if it is essential to install WinPcap for Dataminer failover system with failover pair configuration. The main reason I ask is because WinPCap has ceased Development and is susceptible to DLL hijacking. It is recommended on the website to use Npcap instead.”
Just for sake of clarity for all readers. When Wouter refers to Failover Switch, this is about the failover between a main and backup DataMiner node.