Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] Why is building with libpcap optional?
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From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2016 11:13:10 -0700
On Oct 17, 2016, at 7:18 AM, Joerg Mayer <jmayer@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I tried to recall why building with libpcap is optional and failed.

The reasons I can see for supporting building without libpcap on UN*X are:

	1) some people might want a version of Wireshark that can read captures but can't capture traffic;

	2) some platforms might not have libpcap.

I'm not all that sympathetic to reason 1); I'll let those who want to defend it do so.

As for 2):

	1) most Linux distributions, the *BSDs, macOS, Solaris, and AIX come with libpcap in recent releases;

	2) libpcap can be built and installed on HP-UX and older versions of Solaris and AIX;

	3) it can also be built and installed on other UN*Xes - even if there's no native capture mechanism, where you get a "stub" version of the capture mechanism and don't actually get any interfaces on which to capture;

so I'm not that sympathetic to reason 2), either.

As for Windows, the Developer's Guide tells you how to install the WinPcap SDK.

So I wouldn't personally have a problem with requiring libpcap to be installed on UN*X and the WinPcap SDK to be installed on Windows if you want to build Wireshark.

I'll let those who *would* have a problem argue in favor of their position.