Wireshark mailing list archives
Re: Wireshark needs root privileges?
From: Jeff Morriss <jeff.morriss.ws () gmail com>
Date: Thu, 03 Jun 2010 11:50:54 -0400
Dotan Cohen wrote:
Despite warnings about running Wireshark as root, on my Ubuntu 9.10 system the app sees no network interfaces unless I run it as root. Is this normal? I've googled for "Ubuntu wireshark" and it does seem that self-styled journalists (blogs) recommend running as root, but I do not trust them for best practices.
On most OS[1] you need "root" (or similar) privileges in order to open the network device in a manner that allows you to capture packets. Running Wireshark (the GUI) as root is strongly discouraged: since 1.0 Wireshark has had a separate utility (dumpcap) that contains all the packet capture code: only that utility needs to run as root, allowing you to run the multiple million lines of code in the bulk of Wireshark as a normal user. [1] BSD derived systems allow you to change the permissions of the devices in such a manner that non-root users can capture on them. See: http://wiki.wireshark.org/CaptureSetup/CapturePrivileges for more info. ___________________________________________________________________________ Sent via: Wireshark-users mailing list <wireshark-users () wireshark org> Archives: http://www.wireshark.org/lists/wireshark-users Unsubscribe: https://wireshark.org/mailman/options/wireshark-users mailto:wireshark-users-request () wireshark org?subject=unsubscribe
Current thread:
- Wireshark needs root privileges? Dotan Cohen (Jun 03)
- Re: Wireshark needs root privileges? Anthony Murabito (Jun 03)
- Re: Wireshark needs root privileges? Dotan Cohen (Jun 03)
- Re: Wireshark needs root privileges? kevin creason (Jun 03)
- Re: Wireshark needs root privileges? Dotan Cohen (Jun 03)
- Re: Wireshark needs root privileges? Jeff Morriss (Jun 03)
- Re: Wireshark needs root privileges? Jakub Zawadzki (Jun 03)
- Re: Wireshark needs root privileges? Guy Harris (Jun 03)
- Re: Wireshark needs root privileges? Jeff Morriss (Jun 03)
- Re: Wireshark needs root privileges? Jakub Zawadzki (Jun 03)
- Re: Wireshark needs root privileges? Anthony Murabito (Jun 03)
- Re: Wireshark needs root privileges? Jaap Keuter (Jun 03)