Ethereal-users: Re: [Ethereal-users] Re: Large binary after compilation

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 This list is no longer active.

From: Andrew Hood <ajhood@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 23:38:43 +1000
ron flory wrote:
> Andrew Hood wrote:
> 
>> Mine (Linux) unstripped is 47MB. Why should it matter? Disk and memory
>> is cheap.
> 
> 
>  While generally true for workstations, embedded and other flash-memory
> based systems often don't have that much space to begin with.  Having
> 8MB of free 'disk' space is often a rare luxury.  Also, program load
> times will be unnecessarily increased.
> 
>  Its not too difficult to write a script to find all the executables,
> then run 'strip' on them before building the system disk image.

I think you miss the point. If you are talking about something with
restricted memory space ethereal, or even tethereal if you are prepared
to forgo the GUI, is never going to be the tool of choice. By adding the
power of all the disectors to a data capture engine it winds up huge.
Sure you can strip it and finish up with something of the order of 20MB,
but that won't solve your "8MB of free 'disk' space is often a rare
luxury" issue.

Compare tcpdump with ethereal.

tcpdump: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV),
dynamically linked (uses shared libs), stripped

       537824  tcpdump*

plus the shared libs it uses:
        83344  ld-2.2.5.so*
      1237712  libc-2.2.5.so*
         8840  libdl-2.2.5.so*
       759092  libcrypto.so.0.9.6*

- say 2.5MB

ethereal: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV),
dynamically linked (uses shared libs), stripped

      1243024  ethereal*

plus these shared libs
     13931976  libethereal.so.0.0.1*
       153824  libwiretap.so.0.0.1*

- that's 14.6MB plus these shared libs and plugins which I haven't sized

libnetsnmp.so.5
libcrypto.so.0
libpcre.so.0
libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0
libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0
libatk-1.0.so.0
libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0
libm.so.6
libpangoxft-1.0.so.0
libpangox-1.0.so.0
libpango-1.0.so.0
libgobject-2.0.so.0
libgmodule-2.0.so.0
libdl.so.2
libgthread-2.0.so.0
libpthread.so.0
libglib-2.0.so.0
libz.so.1
libc.so.6
libX11.so.6
libXft.so.2
libfreetype.so.6
libXrender.so.1
libXext.so.6
libfontconfig.so.1
libpangoft2-1.0.so.0
ld-linux.so.2
libexpat.so.0

acn.so
agentx.so
artnet.so
asn1.so
ciscosm.so
docsis.so
enttec.so
cosnaming.so
coseventcomm.so
tango.so
parlay.so
gryphon.so
h223.so
irda.so
lwres.so
mate.so
megaco.so
mgcp.so
opsi.so
pcli.so
profinet.so
rdm.so
rlm.so
rtnet.so
rudp.so
stats_tree.so
v5ua.so


-- 
There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes.
                -- Dr. Who