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Wireshark-users: Re: [Wireshark-users] crashing on OS X

From: Stephen Fisher <stephentfisher@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:50:47 -0700
On Wed, Jan 23, 2008 at 09:26:03PM -0500, Kelly Martin wrote:

> Also, when running as a regular user, Wireshark does not have 
> sufficient privileges to monitor this device - yet if I run it as 
> root, it gives me a warning that this might be dangerous (and indeed, 
> I suspect it might in some cases). Is there another suggested way to 
> run Wireshark on OS X, perhaps only as an admin-but-not-root user? I 
> am confused.

You can pass --enable-setuid-install to the configure script to tell 
Wireshark to install the dumpcap program as setuid root.  This allows 
dumpcap (the capturing part of Wireshark) to run as root, while the rest 
of the program runs as a normal user.  I don't know if MacPorts allows 
you to pass extra parameters to the configure script though, so Guy's 
suggestion may be easier for you if you don't want to compile Wireshark 
from scratch.


Steve