Chapter 2. Building and Installing Wireshark
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## Chapter 2. Building and Installing Wireshark

## 2.1. Introduction

As with all things, there must be a beginning, and so it is with Wireshark. To use Wireshark, you must:

- Obtain a binary package for your operating system, or

- Obtain the source and build Wireshark for your operating system.

Currently, only two or three Linux distributions ship Wireshark, and they are commonly shipping an out-of-date version. No other versions of UNIX ship Wireshark so far, and Microsoft does not ship it with any version of Windows. For that reason, you will need to know where to get the latest version of Wireshark and how to install it.

This chapter shows you how to obtain source and binary packages, and how to build Wireshark from source, should you choose to do so.

The following are the general steps you would use:

1. Download the relevant package for your needs, e.g. source or binary distribution.

2. Build the source into a binary, if you have downloaded the source.

   This may involve building and/or installing other necessary packages.

3. Install the binaries into their final destinations.

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1.6. Reporting problems and getting help | Home | 2.2. Obtaining the source and binary distributions