Ethereal-dev: Re: [Ethereal-dev] plugin packaging & distribution questions
Note: This archive is from the project's previous web site, ethereal.com. This list is no longer active.
Daniel Biagini wrote:
1. Will the plugin self register with ethereal by just placing the .la
and .so files in the proper pluggin directory,
You only need the .so file. (.la files are for shared libraries loaded
at startup time, not for plugins loaded at run time - and I'm not sure
they're needed for modern run-time linkers, such as those in ELF-based
systems such as SunOS 5.x, many BSDs, and Linux, and in at least some
other modern UN*Xes and in Windows; they might only be needed for SunOS
4.x's run-time linker.)
or do all the binaries
need to be recompiled to include the plugin?
If that were the case, I wouldn't consider them to be plugins in any
reasonable sense....
You don't need to recompile Ethereal to add a plugin. The plugin code
scans the plugin directory for loadable modules (based on the file name
- on most UN*Xes, it looks for ".so", although on some UN*Xes the suffix
is different, and on Windows it's ".dll") and loads all the ones that
can be opened as loadable modules and have the appropriate symbols
("version", "plugin_reg_handoff", and "plugin_init").
2. Will different versions of ethereal support the plugin, or will it
have to be compiled for each version that I would like it to run on? (I
am currently working w/ an old version, 0.8.20)
There's no guarantee that a plugin built with one version of Ethereal
will work with another version; plugins built with 0.8.20 almost
certainly won't work with modern versions.
