Ethereal-users: Re: [Ethereal-users] Non-Standard libpcap installation...

Note: This archive is from the project's previous web site, ethereal.com. This list is no longer active.

From: Guy Harris <gharris@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 01:09:15 -0700
On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 06:06:34PM +1000, HOOD, Andy wrote:
> You have compiled libpcap.a I suppose?
> It should them just be a case of adding the appropriate
> -with-pcap=/path/to/pcap/source to the options you give the ./configure
> command

Well, it *would* be a case of doing that *if* Ethereal's configure
script supported "--with-pcap".

However, it doesn't; it doesn't *complain* if you use it, but
autoconf-generated scripts don't complain about unknown "--with-XXX" (or
"--enable-XXX") options - try running the "configure" script from some
program that uses autoconf with options such as

	--enable-faster-than-light-travel

or

	--with-cherries-and-whipped-cream

and see if it fails.

I've checked in a change to replace "--enable-pcap" with "--with-pcap",
and to have it take an option to specify the directory in which to
search for libpcap.

This will, of course, not help if the directory in question doesn't have
"include" and "lib" subdirectories in which the "pcap.h" header file and
libpcap library, respectively, exist - if, as the original poster said,
he didn't install the library, he just left it in the source directory:

> I'm trying to
> compile Ethereal 0.8.18 from source on a system with a non-standard libpcap
> installation (or non-installion as its just the libpcap source directory).

"--with-pcap=XXX" won't work (it's not intended to make life easier for
people who want to use a non-installed libpcap; if somebody wants to do
that, they'll have to do it themselves).