Files that may need modification (continued):

  Ethereal file "epan\dissectors\register.c"

This source code file contains functions that handle registering the protocol dissector functions and associated data structures. This file has the dissector functions for Layer 2 messages added to its registration functions automatically at build time if you have the build environment completely set up. If not, you will need to manually add the dissector function prototypes to this file.

  Ethereal files "capture.c" and "epan\packet.h"

These source code files contain structures that are used by Ethereal’s realtime capture statistics window. The "counts[]" array structure can be modified in "capture.c" to add packet counting and display for the new Layer 2 protocol during capture. A global initialization of the new counter will need to be added. The packet_counts structure in "epan\packet.h" can be modified to add a counter for the new Layer 2 packets. These modifications are only necessary if you wish to have the capture window display packet counts specifically for the new Layer 2 protocol being detected.

  All Ethereal "*.nmake" files (Windows platform)

These are makefiles used by Microsoft’s NMAKE utility. The original nmake files supplied with the Ethereal code base contain many absolute paths and references to utility programs that are not absolutely necessary for building Ethereal. Considerable work is required to either duplicate the build environment, or to modify the project and build files to use only relative paths. ( Wireshark 0.99.5 note: This appears to have been cleaned up, however some edits are still needed to match your build environment. )

Files that need to be added to the Ethereal project:

  Add File "packet-my-layer2.c"

This added source code file will contain functions to dissect the header portion of Layer 2 packets and dispatch the dissection of the Layer 2 message body to functions in packet-my-layer2-msg.c. If the new Layer 2 protocol is simple enough, then further dissection may not be required.

  Add file "packet-my-layer2-msg.c"

This added source code file will contain functions used to dissect the body of the new Layer 2 packets, if necessary. Once all the other modifications have been done, this is normally the only file will requires addition when adding new Layer 2 message type dissectors. Again, this file and it's code may not be necessary if the new Layer 2 protocol is simple enough.

Build dependencies (Windows platform):

To successfully build the Ethereal application when source code control is used config.h, ps.c, and image\*.res must either be checked out, or set for write access. To build Ethereal enter the following command line in the root directory of the Ethereal source code:

nmake –f makefile.nmake

To build a setup program for the modified Ethereal project, NSIS must be installed on the development system. NSIS is a public domain installation program creator and is available at: http://www.nullsoft.com/free/nsis/

To build the setup program for Ethereal right-click on the file named ‘ethereal-0.8.19\packaging\nsis\ethereal.nsi’ and select ‘Compile NSI’ from the pop-up menu.

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