Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] Wireshark 0.99.7 feature explanation

From: Stephen Fisher <stephentfisher@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 22:51:16 -0700
On Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at 09:31:53PM +0200, Richard Storm wrote:

> Could you, please, explain what exactly does this feature means:
> * Most of the capture code has been moved out of the GUI, which means
> that Wireshark no longer needs to be run as root!
> 
> What exactly has changed since 0.99.6?

The main thing that changed was that dumpcap is now used to capture/look
up interfaces/etc. when using the Wireshark GUI.  dumpcap is a
standalone program that can capture to a file or to a pipe into
Wireshark/tshark.  dumpcap has been around for a while (I believe being
used in tshark).  There is now an option to install Wireshark in such a
way that only dumpcap is run as setuid root instead of the entire
Wireshark program for security reasons.

Does this help?


Steve