Protocol Support

Kubeshark supports a comprehensive range of network protocols across multiple layers, from low-level transport protocols to application-layer APIs.

Supported Protocols

HTTP & Web Protocols

ProtocolVersionDescription
HTTP/1.0RFC 1945Original HTTP protocol
HTTP/1.1RFC 2616Persistent connections, chunked transfer
HTTP/2RFC 7540Multiplexed streams, header compression
WebSocketRFC 6455Full-duplex communication over HTTP
GraphQLHTTP/1.1 & HTTP/2Query language for APIs

Messaging & Streaming

ProtocolDescription
Apache KafkaDistributed event streaming platform
AMQPAdvanced Message Queuing Protocol (RabbitMQ)
RedisIn-memory data structure store protocol

Database Protocols

ProtocolDescription
MongoDBMongoDB Wire Protocol
MySQLMySQL Client/Server Protocol
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL Frontend/Backend Protocol

RPC & API Protocols

ProtocolDescription
gRPCHigh-performance RPC over HTTP/2

Authentication Protocols

ProtocolRFCDescription
LDAPRFC 4511Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
RADIUSRFC 2865Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service
DIAMETERRFC 6733Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting

Network & Transport Layer

ProtocolRFCDescription
TCPRFC 9293Transmission Control Protocol
UDPRFC 768User Datagram Protocol
SCTPRFC 4960Stream Control Transmission Protocol
DNSRFC 1035Domain Name System
ICMPRFC 792Internet Control Message Protocol

Security Protocols

ProtocolDescription
TLSTransport Layer Security with automatic decryption

TLS Decryption

Kubeshark decrypts TLS in-place by hooking the cryptographic library inside each workload with eBPF — no private keys, no certificates, no sidecars. Support is image-specific, and service-mesh mTLS (Istio, Cilium, Consul, Envoy-based meshes) is captured in plaintext with no additional setup.

→ TLS Decryption: supported libraries, images, and how it works

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