Wireshark · Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] Is there a way to change the path (location) of wireshark PLUGINs?

[Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

yenan wrote:
> I found an option in configure file:
>
>
>   --with-plugins[=DIR]    support plugins (installed in DIR, if supplied).
>                           [default=yes, if possible]
>  
> by using this option, is that means I can write a plugin in some 
> location , and includes the plugin?

That option is not needed in order to have Wireshark support plugins; if 
your platform is capable of supporting plugins (all modern UN*Xes are; 
so is Windows, but you wouldn't use the configure script on Windows), 
Wireshark is built by default with plugin support.  If you're building 
on UN*X, you could use "--without-pugins" to *remove* plugin support.

That option, if used with "=DIR", changes the "system" plugin directory, 
so that if you build Wireshark, the plugins will be installed there, 
rather than in the default directory, and the resulting Wireshark will 
look for plugins in that directory.

> It requires a whole 
> direction(inculding makefile and souce codes) or only a lo file?

What you need to install in the plugin directory is a .so file (on most 
UN*Xes, *including Mac OS X*) or a ".sl" file (I *think* that's the 
extension on 32-bit HP-UX) or a ".dll" file (on Windows).

Currently, to build a plugin, you need to add a new subdirectory of the 
"plugins" directory of the Wireshark source and build Wireshark; we 
don't currently have support for conveniently building plugins by 
themselves.

> can anyone please give me a simple example? Say I develop a plugin XX in 
> $home/plugin/xxx . , how can I include this plugin XXX to wireshark?

By putting the plugin into $HOME/.wireshark/plugins, or the Windows 
equivalent, which is the "personal" plugin directory.

The only directories in which Wireshark will look for plugins are the 
"system" plugin directory and the "personal" plugin directory.