2.2. Obtaining the source and binary distributions

You can obtain both source and binary distributions from the Wireshark web site: http://www.wireshark.org. Simply select the download link, and then select either the source package or binary package of your choice from the mirror site closest to you.

[Note]Download all required files!

In general, unless you have already downloaded Wireshark before, you will most likely need to download several source packages if you are building Wireshark from source. This is covered in more detail below.

Once you have downloaded the relevant files, you can go on to the next step.

[Note]Note!

While you will find a number of binary packages available on the Wireshark web site, you might not find one for your platform, and they often tend to be several versions behind the current released version, as they are contributed by people who have the platforms they are built for.

For this reason, you might want to pull down the source distribution and build it, as the process is relatively simple.