Ethereal-dev: Re: [Ethereal-dev] 0.9.16

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From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 14:38:53 -0800

On Nov 21, 2003, at 2:17 PM, Hauptmann Bob-P18081 wrote:

I have a Solaris 8 file server that I added ethereal 0.9.16 to using the pkgadd function. The file server NFS mounts the /usr/local/bin directory to several other Solaris8 machines.

Presumably you meant "the file server *shares* (or *exports*) the /usr/local/bin directory over NFS to several other Solaris 8 machines" - a file server client NFS-mounts a file system, a file server exports or shares a file system.

I.e., "/usr/local/bin" is a local file system on the file server.

When I execute ethereal (ethereal -i hme0) on the NFS'd machine, I get /dev/hme permissions not set. It looks like permissions are valid

I.e., the permissions on "/dev/hme" *on the machine on which you're running Ethereal* allow you (not root, *you*) to open it for reading and writing?

If not, then the permissions aren't valid for allowing users to capture while running Ethereal as themselves - you have to run it as root.

and everything is setup properly. Ethereal runs properly on my file server.

Then either

1) "/dev/hme" is readable and writable by whoever's running Ethereal (although that will, I think, not let you capture in promiscuous mode - which will, I think, mean you won't see outgoing traffic);

2) Ethereal's set-UID to root, and the machine that's mounting "/usr/local/bin" is mounting it "nosuid" so that the set-UID bit doesn't have any effect on that machine;

3) you're running it as root on your file server, but not on the machine that's mounting "/usr/local/bin" over NFS.

What could be the problem on the NFS'd machine? Is ethereal supported across NFS?

Ethereal has no idea whether it's running from a binary on an NFS server or not. It works just fine on Solaris 8 when running from an NFS server (I did that for years when I was working at Network Appliance).