How To Install Wireshark 1.12.3 On Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 And Derivatives (From Sources)

Edit: Due to the fact that this article is old, the installation instructions may not work anymore. In order to successfully install the latest version of Wireshark, please access the wireshark tag and open the latest article (the one on top).

The latest installation instructions for Wireshark

Hello Linux Geeksters. As you already know, Wireshark is an open-source protocol analyzer software, very used for monitoring the network traffic.

The latest version available is Wireshark 1.12.3, which has been released recently, coming with fixes.

Fixed vulnerabilities:

• The WCCP dissector could crash.
• The LPP dissector could crash.
• The DEC DNA Routing Protocol dissector could crash.
• The SMTP dissector could crash.
• Wireshark could crash while decypting TLS/SSL sessions.

Bug-fixes:

• WebSocket dissector: empty payload causes DISSECTOR_ASSERT_NOT_REACHED.
• Wireshark crashes if Lua heuristic dissector returns true.
• Display MEP ID in decimal in OAM Y.1731 Synthetic Loss Message and Reply PDU.
• TCP Window Size incorrectly reported in Packet List.
• Status bar “creeps” to the left a few pixels every time Wireshark is opened.
• E-LMI Message type.
• SMTP decoder can dump binary data to terminal in TShark
• PTPoE dissector gets confused by packets that include an FCS.
• IPv6 Vendor Specific Mobility Option includes the next mobility option type.
• Save PCAP to PCAPng with commentary fails.
• Display filter “frame contains bytes [2342]” causes a crash.
• Multipath TCP: checksum displayed when it’s not there.
• LTE APN-AMBR is decoded incorrectly.
• DNS NAPTR RR Replacement Length is incorrect.
• IPv6 Experimental mobility header data is interpreted as options.
• Dissector bug, protocol SPDY: tvbuff.c:610: failed assertion “tvb && tvb→initialized”.
• BGP: Incorrect decoding AS numbers when mixed AS size.
• BGP update community – incorrect decoding.
• Setting a 6LoWPAN context generates a Wireshark crash.
• FC is not dissected (protocol UNKNOWN).
• Crash when displaying several times INFO column.
• Decoding of longitude value in LCSAP (3GPP TS 29.171) is incorrect.
• Crash when enabling FCoIB manual settings without filling address field.
• RSVP RECORD_ROUTE IPv4 Subobject Flags field incorrect decoding.
• Wireshark Lua engine can’t access protocol field type.
• Field Analysis of OpenFlow v1.4 OFPT_SET_ASYNC.
• Lua: getting fieldinfo.value for FT_NONE causes assert.

In this article I will show you how to install Wireshark 1.12.3 on Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn, Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr, Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca, Linux Mint 17 Qiana, Pinguy OS 14.04, Elementary OS 0.3 Freya, Peppermint Five, Deepin 2014, LXLE 14.04, Linux Lite 2 and other Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 14.04 derivative systems.

Because it is not available via any repository/PPA, we have to perform an installation from sources. Follow the instructions exactly, in order to get a successful installation.

Install the required dependencies:

$ sudo apt-get build-dep wireshark
$ sudo apt-get install qt4-default

Download the Wireshark archive, extract it and cd into the extracted folder:

$ cd ~
$ wget https://1.as.dl.wireshark.org/src/wireshark-1.12.3.tar.bz2
$ tar -xjvf wireshark-1.12.3.tar.bz2
$ cd wireshark-1.12.3/

Configure, compile and install:

$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ sudo ldconfig
$ wireshark

That’s it. To start wireshark, open a terminal, type wireshark and hit enter.