Chapter�2.燘uilding and Installing Wireshark

Chapter 2. Building and Installing Wireshark

Table of Contents

2.1. Introduction

2.2. Obtaining the source and binary distributions

2.3. Before you build Wireshark under UNIX

2.4. Building Wireshark from source under UNIX

2.5. Installing the binaries under UNIX

2.5.1. Installing from rpm's under Red Hat and alike
2.5.2. Installing from deb's under Debian, Ubuntu and other Debian derivatives
2.5.3. Installing from portage under Gentoo Linux
2.5.4. Installing from packages under FreeBSD

2.6. Troubleshooting during the install on Unix

2.7. Building from source under Windows

2.8. Installing Wireshark under Windows

2.8.1. Install Wireshark
2.8.2. Manual WinPcap Installation
2.8.3. Update Wireshark
2.8.4. Update WinPcap
2.8.5. Uninstall Wireshark
2.8.6. Uninstall WinPcap

2.1. Introduction

As with all things, there must be a beginning, and so it is with Wireshark. To use Wireshark, you must:

Obtain a binary package for your operating system, or
Obtain the source and build Wireshark for your operating system.

Currently, several Linux distributions ship Wireshark, but they are commonly shipping an out-of-date version. No other versions of UNIX ship Wireshark so far, and Microsoft does not ship it with any version of Windows. For that reason, you will need to know where to get the latest version of Wireshark and how to install it.

This chapter shows you how to obtain source and binary packages, and how to build Wireshark from source, should you choose to do so.

The following are the general steps you would use:

Download the relevant package for your needs, e.g. source or binary distribution.
Build the source into a binary, if you have downloaded the source.

This may involve building and/or installing other necessary packages.
Install the binaries into their final destinations.