Introduction

In this chapter, we will cover all of the steps necessary to complete a functioning installation of the Wireshark network analyzer. Due to the overwhelming amount of Unix-based distributions available today, installation instructions can vary from distribution to distribution, and are beyond the scope of this chapter For this reason, we will be focusing on information specific to installation on the Fedora Core 6 platform. We have chosen Fedora Core because it is the most commonly used Linux distribution in the world, and serves as a good starting point on which to base further installations. Most of what we cover here should apply to most other popular distributions without a large amount of modification. If the instructions do vary, however, the difference should be minimal. For the Windows side, we will be focusing on Windows XP, due to its common use. Lastly, we have included several installation options for Mac OSX.

For this chapter, we started with fresh installations of Fedora Core 6, Windows XP, and Mac OSX. We accepted the default installation parameters for each of the operating systems (OSs). These types of installations often install needless software, and leave many security vulnerabilities wide open. You should follow many best practices when installing new systems and also when subsequently applying operating system security procedures. These methods are beyond the scope of this book, but you should pick up a good reference for securing your particular operating system. Please make sure your operating system is current, patched, and secured.