Wireshark-bugs: [Wireshark-bugs] [Bug 8184] As root WIRESHARK_RUN_FROM_BUILD_DIRECTORY set, but
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From: bugzilla-daemon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2013 19:21:10 +0000

Comment # 3 on bug 8184 from 
(In reply to comment #2)
> Hmm, so WIRESHARK_RUN_FROM_BUILD_DIRECTORY does not do anything if I am root?
> 
> >If we were started
> >with special privileges, it's not safe to allow the user to point
> >us to some other directory
> 
> 
> But what is unsafe here pointing to the build directory?

You could put anything there, including something that does

    system("rm -rf /");

Perhaps we should change the way libwireshark defines "started with special
privileges" to cover only set-UID root, not "run from su or sudo".

However, to quote doc/README.packaging:

    3. Privileges.

    In versions up to and including 0.99.6, it was necessary to run
    Wireshark with elevated privileges in order to be able to capture
    traffic. With version 0.99.7, all function calls that require elevated
    privileges have been moved out of the GUI to dumpcap.

    WIRESHARK CONTAINS OVER TWO MILLION LINES OF SOURCE CODE. DO NOT RUN
    THEM AS ROOT.

so you should arrange, somehow, to have dumpcap run with sufficient privileges
- which, on sufficiently recent versions of at least some Linux distributions,
doesn't mean "as root".  Ubuntu is a Debian derivative, so see

   
http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/collab-maint/ext-maint/wireshark/trunk/debian/README.Debian?view=markup

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