3.12. Binary packaging

Delivering binary packages, makes it much easier for the end-users to install Wireshark on their target system. This section will explain how the binary packages are made.

3.12.1. Debian: .deb packages

The Debian Package is built using dpkg-buildpackage, based on information found in the source tree under debian. See http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/336 for a more in-depth discussion of the build process.

In the wireshark directory, type:

$ make debian-package

to build the Debian Package.

3.12.2. Red Hat: .rpm packages

The RPM is built using rpmbuild (http://www.rpm.org/), which comes as standard on many flavours of Linux, including Red Hat and Fedora. The process creates a clean build environment in packaging/rpm/BUILD every time the RPM is built. The settings controlling the build are in packaging/rpm/SPECS/wireshark.spec.in. After editing the settings in this file, ./configure must be run again in the wireshark directory to generate the actual specification script.

[Warning]Warn!

The SPEC file contains settings for the configure used to set the RPM build environment. These are completely independent of any settings passed to the usual Wireshark ./configure.

In the wireshark directory, type:

$ make rpm-package

to build the RPM. Once it is done, there will be a message stating where the built RPM can be found.

[Tip]Tip!

Because this does a clean build, as well as constructing the package, this can take quite a long time.

3.12.3. Win32: NSIS .exe installer

The "Nullsoft Install System" is a free installer generator for Win32 based systems; instructions how to install it can be found in Section 4.17, “Win32: NSIS (optional)”. NSIS is script based, you will find the Wireshark installer generation script at: packaging/nsis/wireshark.nsi.

You will probably have to modify the MAKENSIS setting in the config.nmake file to specify where the NSIS binaries are installed.

In the wireshark directory, type:

> nmake -f makefile.nmake packaging

to build the installer.

[Tip]Tip!

Please be patient while the compression is done, it will take some time (a few minutes!) even on fast machines.

If everything went well, you will now find something like: wireshark-setup-1.0.0.exe in the packaging/nsis directory.