1. An apparatus, comprising: a capture system configured to couple to a router, which interacts with a plurality of clients in a network environment, wherein the capture system includes a packet capture module for receiving packets associated with traffic flows involving the clients and stores the packets in a receiver packet memory in the capture system; a network interface module; and an application, wherein the packet capture module operates between the network interface module and the application, and wherein the network interface module and the packet capture module operate on a kernel portion of the capture system that is separate from an application portion of the capture system; wherein: the packet capture module further includes a control memory accessible by the network interface module and by the application; the control memory comprising a head pointer updated by the network interface module, and a tail pointer updated by the application; the head pointer and the tail pointer identify the packets in the receiver packet memory which are unprocessed by the application.