README.txt 10 KB

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  1. General Information
  2. -------------------
  3. Wireshark is a network traffic analyzer, or "sniffer", for Linux, macOS,
  4. \*BSD and other Unix and Unix-like operating systems and for Windows.
  5. It uses Qt, a graphical user interface library, and libpcap and npcap as
  6. packet capture and filtering libraries.
  7. The Wireshark distribution also comes with TShark, which is a
  8. line-oriented sniffer (similar to Sun's snoop or tcpdump) that uses the
  9. same dissection, capture-file reading and writing, and packet filtering
  10. code as Wireshark, and with editcap, which is a program to read capture
  11. files and write the packets from that capture file, possibly in a
  12. different capture file format, and with some packets possibly removed
  13. from the capture.
  14. The official home of Wireshark is https://www.wireshark.org.
  15. The latest distribution can be found in the subdirectory https://www.wireshark.org/download
  16. Installation
  17. ------------
  18. The Wireshark project builds and tests regularly on the following platforms:
  19. - Linux (Ubuntu)
  20. - Microsoft Windows
  21. - macOS / {Mac} OS X
  22. Official installation packages are available for Microsoft Windows and
  23. macOS.
  24. It is available as either a standard or add-on package for many popular
  25. operating systems and Linux distributions including Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora,
  26. CentOS, RHEL, Arch, Gentoo, openSUSE, FreeBSD, DragonFly BSD, NetBSD, and
  27. OpenBSD.
  28. Additionally it is available through many third-party packaging systems
  29. such as pkgsrc, OpenCSW, Homebrew, and MacPorts.
  30. It should run on other Unix-ish systems without too much trouble.
  31. In some cases the current version of Wireshark might not support your
  32. operating system. This is the case for Windows XP, which is supported by
  33. Wireshark 1.10 and earlier. In other cases the standard package for
  34. Wireshark might simply be old. This is the case for Solaris and HP-UX.
  35. Python 3 is needed to build Wireshark. AsciiDoctor is required to build
  36. the documentation, including the man pages. Perl and flex are required
  37. to generate some of the source code.
  38. You must therefore install Python 3, AsciiDoctor, and GNU "flex" (vanilla
  39. "lex" won't work) on systems that lack them. You might need to install
  40. Perl as well.
  41. Full installation instructions can be found in the INSTALL file and in the
  42. Developer's Guide at https://www.wireshark.org/docs/wsdg_html_chunked/
  43. See also the appropriate README._OS_ files for OS-specific installation
  44. instructions.
  45. Usage
  46. -----
  47. In order to capture packets from the network, you need to make the
  48. dumpcap program set-UID to root or you need to have access to the
  49. appropriate entry under `/dev` if your system is so inclined (BSD-derived
  50. systems, and systems such as Solaris and HP-UX that support DLPI,
  51. typically fall into this category). Although it might be tempting to
  52. make the Wireshark and TShark executables setuid root, or to run them as
  53. root please don't. The capture process has been isolated in dumpcap;
  54. this simple program is less likely to contain security holes and is thus
  55. safer to run as root.
  56. Please consult the man page for a description of each command-line
  57. option and interface feature.
  58. Multiple File Types
  59. -------------------
  60. Wireshark can read packets from a number of different file types. See
  61. the Wireshark man page or the Wireshark User's Guide for a list of
  62. supported file formats.
  63. Wireshark can transparently read compressed versions of any of those files if
  64. the required compression library was available when Wireshark was compiled.
  65. Currently supported compression formats are:
  66. - GZIP
  67. - ZSTD
  68. - LZ4
  69. You can disable zlib support by running `cmake -DENABLE_ZLIB=OFF`.
  70. Although Wireshark can read AIX iptrace files, the documentation on
  71. AIX's iptrace packet-trace command is sparse. The `iptrace` command
  72. starts a daemon which you must kill in order to stop the trace. Through
  73. experimentation it appears that sending a HUP signal to that iptrace
  74. daemon causes a graceful shutdown and a complete packet is written
  75. to the trace file. If a partial packet is saved at the end, Wireshark
  76. will complain when reading that file, but you will be able to read all
  77. other packets. If this occurs, please let the Wireshark developers know
  78. at wireshark-dev@wireshark.org; be sure to send us a copy of that trace
  79. file if it's small and contains non-sensitive data.
  80. Support for Lucent/Ascend products is limited to the debug trace output
  81. generated by the MAX and Pipline series of products. Wireshark can read
  82. the output of the `wandsession`, `wandisplay`, `wannext`, and `wdd`
  83. commands.
  84. Wireshark can also read dump trace output from the Toshiba "Compact Router"
  85. line of ISDN routers (TR-600 and TR-650). You can telnet to the router
  86. and start a dump session with `snoop dump`.
  87. CoSine L2 debug output can also be read by Wireshark. To get the L2
  88. debug output first enter the diags mode and then use
  89. `create-pkt-log-profile` and `apply-pkt-lozg-profile` commands under
  90. layer-2 category. For more detail how to use these commands, you
  91. should examine the help command by `layer-2 create ?` or `layer-2 apply ?`.
  92. To use the Lucent/Ascend, Toshiba and CoSine traces with Wireshark, you must
  93. capture the trace output to a file on disk. The trace is happening inside
  94. the router and the router has no way of saving the trace to a file for you.
  95. An easy way of doing this under Unix is to run `telnet <ascend> | tee <outfile>`.
  96. Or, if your system has the "script" command installed, you can save
  97. a shell session, including telnet, to a file. For example to log to a file
  98. named tracefile.out:
  99. ~~~
  100. $ script tracefile.out
  101. Script started on <date/time>
  102. $ telnet router
  103. ..... do your trace, then exit from the router's telnet session.
  104. $ exit
  105. Script done on <date/time>
  106. ~~~
  107. Name Resolution
  108. ---------------
  109. Wireshark will attempt to use reverse name resolution capabilities
  110. when decoding IPv4 and IPv6 packets.
  111. If you want to turn off name resolution while using Wireshark, start
  112. Wireshark with the `-n` option to turn off all name resolution (including
  113. resolution of MAC addresses and TCP/UDP/SMTP port numbers to names) or
  114. with the `-N mt` option to turn off name resolution for all
  115. network-layer addresses (IPv4, IPv6, IPX).
  116. You can make that the default setting by opening the Preferences dialog
  117. using the Preferences item in the Edit menu, selecting "Name resolution",
  118. turning off the appropriate name resolution options, and clicking "OK".
  119. SNMP
  120. ----
  121. Wireshark can do some basic decoding of SNMP packets; it can also use
  122. the libsmi library to do more sophisticated decoding by reading MIB
  123. files and using the information in those files to display OIDs and
  124. variable binding values in a friendlier fashion. CMake will automatically
  125. determine whether you have the libsmi library on your system. If you
  126. have the libsmi library but _do not_ want Wireshark to use it, you can run
  127. cmake with the `-DENABLE_SMI=OFF` option.
  128. How to Report a Bug
  129. -------------------
  130. Wireshark is under constant development, so it is possible that you will
  131. encounter a bug while using it. Please report bugs at https://gitlab.com/wireshark/wireshark/-/issues.
  132. Be sure you enter into the bug:
  133. 1. The complete build information from the "About Wireshark"
  134. item in the Help menu or the output of `wireshark -v` for
  135. Wireshark bugs and the output of `tshark -v` for TShark bugs;
  136. 2. If the bug happened on Linux, the Linux distribution you were
  137. using, and the version of that distribution;
  138. 3. The command you used to invoke Wireshark, if you ran
  139. Wireshark from the command line, or TShark, if you ran
  140. TShark, and the sequence of operations you performed that
  141. caused the bug to appear.
  142. If the bug is produced by a particular trace file, please be sure to
  143. attach to the bug a trace file along with your bug description. If the
  144. trace file contains sensitive information (e.g., passwords), then please
  145. do not send it.
  146. If Wireshark died on you with a 'segmentation violation', 'bus error',
  147. 'abort', or other error that produces a UNIX core dump file, you can
  148. help the developers a lot if you have a debugger installed. A stack
  149. trace can be obtained by using your debugger ('gdb' in this example),
  150. the wireshark binary, and the resulting core file. Here's an example of
  151. how to use the gdb command 'backtrace' to do so.
  152. ~~~
  153. $ gdb wireshark core
  154. (gdb) backtrace
  155. ..... prints the stack trace
  156. (gdb) quit
  157. $
  158. ~~~
  159. The core dump file may be named "wireshark.core" rather than "core" on
  160. some platforms (e.g., BSD systems). If you got a core dump with
  161. TShark rather than Wireshark, use "tshark" as the first argument to
  162. the debugger; the core dump may be named "tshark.core".
  163. License
  164. -------
  165. Wireshark is distributed under the GNU GPLv2. See the file COPYING for
  166. the full text of the license. When in doubt the full text is the legally
  167. binding part. These notes are just to make it easier for people that are not
  168. familiar with the GPLv2.
  169. There are no restrictions on its use. There are restrictions on its distribution
  170. in source or binary form.
  171. Most parts of Wireshark are covered by a "GPL version 2 or later" license.
  172. Some files are covered by different licenses that are compatible with
  173. the GPLv2.
  174. As a notable exception, some utilities distributed with the Wireshark source are
  175. covered by other licenses that are not themselves directly compatible with the
  176. GPLv2. This is OK, as only the tools themselves are licensed this way, the
  177. output of the tools is not considered a derived work, and so can be safely
  178. licensed for Wireshark's use. An incomplete selection of these tools includes:
  179. - the pidl utility (tools/pidl) is licensed under the GPLv3+.
  180. Parts of Wireshark can be built and distributed as libraries. These
  181. parts are still covered by the GPL, and NOT by the Lesser General Public
  182. License or any other license.
  183. If you integrate all or part of Wireshark into your own application, then
  184. that application must be released under a license compatible with the GPL.
  185. Disclaimer
  186. ----------
  187. There is no warranty, expressed or implied, associated with this product.
  188. Use at your own risk.
  189. Gerald Combs <gerald@wireshark.org>
  190. Gilbert Ramirez <gram@alumni.rice.edu>
  191. Guy Harris <gharris@sonic.net>