The sources contain several documentation files. It’s a good idea to read these files first. After obtaining the sources, tools and libraries, the first place to look at is doc/README.developer. Inside you will find the latest information for Wireshark development for all supported platforms.
![[Tip]](wsdg_graphics/tip.svg) | Build Wireshark before changing anything |
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It is a very good idea to first test your complete build environment (including running and debugging Wireshark) before making any changes to the source code (unless otherwise noted). |
Building Wireshark for the first time depends on your platform.
The recommended (and fastest) way to build Wireshark is with CMake and Ninja:
# Starting from your Wireshark source directory, create a build directory # alongside it. $ cd .. $ mkdir wireshark-ninja $ cd wireshark-ninja # Assumes your source directory is named "wireshark". $ cmake -G Ninja ../wireshark $ ninja (or cmake --build .)
If you need to build with a non-standard configuration, you can run
$ cmake -LH ../wireshark
to see what options you have.
Follow the build procedure in Section 2.2.12, “Build Wireshark” to build Wireshark.
After the build process has successfully finished, you should find a
Wireshark.exe and some other files in the run\RelWithDebInfo directory.