Wireshark-users: Re: [Wireshark-users] run wireshark as regular user

From: Jeff Morriss <jeff.morriss.ws@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:00:11 -0500

Ivan Matousek wrote:

Hi,

I am just testing wireshark on ubuntu 7.10 as root but I cannot
run it from the regular user. What do I need to set or configure?

You should be able to run Wireshark as a regular user but you will not be able to capture--for that you generally need root access. (Though on at least some BSD operating systems you can simply chmod the appropriate device to allow non-root users to capture.)

The upcoming release (0.99.7) will allow you to install the 'dumpcap' utility as setuid-root and this will allow all users to capture with Wireshark. See:

http://wiki.wireshark.org/Development/PrivilegeSeparation