User Guide

Building and Installing Wireshark

For this reason, you might want to pull down the source distribution and build it, as the

process is relatively simple.

2.3. Before you build Wireshark under UNIX

Before you build Wireshark from sources, or install a binary package, you must ensure that you have the

following other packages installed:

• GTK+, The GIMP Tool Kit.

You will also need Glib. Both can be obtained from www.gtk.org

• libpcap, the packet capture software that Wireshark uses.

You can obtain libpcap from www.tcpdump.org

Depending on your system, you may be able to install these from binaries, e.g. RPMs, or you may need

to obtain them in source code form and build them.

If you have downloaded the source for GTK+, the instructions shown in Example 2.1, “Building GTK+

from source” may provide some help in building it:

Example 2.1. Building GTK+ from source

gzip -dc gtk+-2.21.1.tar.gz | tar xvf -

cd gtk+-2.21.1

./configure

make

make install

Note!

You may need to change the version number of GTK+ in Example 2.1, “Building GTK+

from source” to match the version of GTK+ you have downloaded. The directory you change

to will change if the version of GTK+ changes, and in all cases, tar xvf - will show you the

name of the directory you should change to.

Note!

If you use Linux, or have GNU tar installed, you can use tar zxvf gtk+-2.21.1.tar.gz. It is

also possible to use gunzip -c or gzcat rather than gzip -dc on many UNIX systems.

Note!

If you downloaded GTK+ or any other tar file using Windows, you may find your file called

gtk+-2_21_1_tar.gz.

You should consult the GTK+ web site if any errors occur in carrying out the instructions in Example 2.1,

“Building GTK+ from source”.