Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] Wireshark Portable, running it from USB devices

From: Ulf Lamping <ulf.lamping@xxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 04:29:12 +0100
Hi John!

Sorry for the delay, I'm currently really busy ...

BTW: You can get the current folders inside WS at Help / About / Folders
BTW8"): Some more infos on this topic are at: http://www.wireshark.org/docs/wsug_html_chunked/ChAppFilesConfigurationSection.html

John T. Haller wrote:
I personally recommend a commandline option as this provides the most
flexibility.  That way the end user has complete control should they
want it.  Firefox, Thunderbird, etc all provide commandline switches for
this.  And, you could use this same commandline switch for your U3
package (no need to check for the environment variables = less code)
So this comes to my mind:

A) "Where the program files are" (U3_DEVICE_EXEC_PATH)
Usually defaults to: c:\Program Files\Wireshark
Will automatically be detected by WS, not worth a command line option IMO

B) "Where the personal configuration files are" (U3_APP_DATA_PATH)
Usually defaults to: %APPDATA%\Wireshark
New example command line option: -P "persconf:X:\WiresharkPortable\Data\Profile"

C) "where the users data files are" (U3_DEVICE_DOCUMENT_PATH\My Captures)
Usually defaults to: c:\documents and settings\<username>\Application Data\My Documents New example command line option: -P "persdata:X:\WiresharkPortable\Data\Captures"

D) NOT IMPLEMENTED YET (I don't know if it's required)
"Where the currently captured file is" - temporary directory
Usually defaults to: c:\documents and settings\<username>\Local Settings\Temp Example command line option: -P "temp:X:\WiresharkPortable\Data\Captures Temp"


So in effect, B) and C) are implemented now by the new command line switch -P in SVN 21022 ...

If you do a test run, be sure to do the "quotations" right as I've outlined above and that the dir is existing :-)

- we'll need an "Application Data/Wireshark" directory somewhere on the stick - is there a "portable app recommendation" for this?

The standard setup would be:

X:\PortableApps\
------\WiresharkPortable\  (this is where WiresharkPortable.exe lives)
------------\App\
------------------\wireshark\  (all Wireshark's binaries live here)
------------------\winpcap\  (winpcap installer, just to keep it neat)
------------\Data\  (this would contain any user settings files, etc)


We'll need two dirs in the Data dir, the profile (settings) and the actual users (capture) data.
Ok, if you can get me a Wireshark build that accepts a commandline parameter pointing it to its data and let me know how you check for PCap being installed (is just checking for the DLL enough?) I can get you a test portable build... fancy splash screen and all. Oh, and I started checking out compression and I can get the Wireshark install from 68MB down to 22MB using UPX compress with specific settings on the DLLs and EXEs. I have a script that takes care of this I can give ya. I can package this all up in a PAF (it stands for PortableApps.com Format) so it can be installed by anyone by itself or auto-installed into the PortableApps.com Menu (it's under Options).

You should get an SVN 21022 build pretty soon on http://www.wireshark.org/download/automated/win32/.

Regards, ULFL