$Id$ 1. Plugins Writing a "plugin" dissector is not very different from writing a standard one. In fact all of the functions described in README.developer can be used in the plugins exactly as the are used in standard dissectors. (Note, however, that not all OSes on which Wireshark runs can support plugins.) If you've chosen "xxx" as the name of your plugin (typically, that would be a short name for your protocol, in all lower case), the following instructions tell you how to implement it as a plugin. All occurrences of "xxx" below should be replaced by the name of your plugin. 2. The directory for the plugin, and its files The plugin should be placed in a new plugins/xxx directory which should contain minimally the following files: AUTHORS COPYING ChangeLog Makefile.am Makefile.common Makefile.nmake moduleinfo.h moduleinfo.nmake plugin.rc.in The source files and header files for your dissector Examples of these files can be found in plugins/h223. 2.1 AUTHORS, COPYING, and ChangeLog The AUTHORS, COPYING, and ChangeLog are the standard sort of GPL project files. 2.2 Makefile.am For your plugins/xxx/Makefile.am file, see the corresponding file in plugins/h223. Replace all occurrences of "h223" in those files with "xxx". 2.3 Makefile.common Your plugins/xxx/Makefile.common should list the source files for your dissector in the DISSECTOR_SRC variable, and all supporting source files in the DISSECTOR_SUPPORT_SRC variable. The header files for your dissector, if any, must be listed in the DISSECTOR_INCLUDES variable. The DISSECTOR_INCLUDES variable should not include moduleinfo.h. 2.4 Makefile.nmake For your plugins/xxx/Makefile.nmake file, see the corresponding file in plugins/h223. No modifications are needed here. 2.5 moduleinfo.h Your plugins/xxx/moduleinfo.h file is used to set the version information for the plugin. 2.6 moduleinfo.nmake Your plugins/xxx/moduleinfo.nmake is used to set the version information for building the plugin. Its contents should match that in moduleinfo.h 2.7 plugin.rc.in Your plugins/xxx/plugin.rc.in is the Windows resource template file used to add the plugin specific information as resources to the DLL. No modifications are needed here. 3. Changes to existing Wireshark files You will also need to change the plugins/Makefile.am, the plugins/Makefile.nmake, the toplevel Makefile.am file, and the toplevel configure.in file. 3.1 Changes to plugins/Makefile.am The plugins directory contains a Makefile.am. You need to change the SUBDIRS directive to reflect the addition of your plugin: SUBDIRS = \ gryphon \ mgcp \ xxx 3.2 Changes to plugins/Makefile.nmake To the Makefile.nmake you need to add your plugin to the all: rule all: \ gryphon \ mgcp \ xxx then add a rule for your plugin: xxx: cd xxx $(MAKE) /$(MAKEFLAGS) -f Makefile.nmake cd .. and add to the clean rules support for cleaning up after your plugin: clean: cd gryphon $(MAKE) /$(MAKEFLAGS) -f Makefile.nmake clean cd ../mgcp $(MAKE) /$(MAKEFLAGS) -f Makefile.nmake clean cd .. cd xxx $(MAKE) /$(MAKEFLAGS) -f Makefile.nmake clean cd .. distclean: clean cd gryphon $(MAKE) /$(MAKEFLAGS) -f Makefile.nmake distclean cd ../mgcp $(MAKE) /$(MAKEFLAGS) -f Makefile.nmake distclean cd .. cd xxx $(MAKE) /$(MAKEFLAGS) -f Makefile.nmake distclean cd .. maintainer-clean: clean cd gryphon $(MAKE) /$(MAKEFLAGS) -f Makefile.nmake maintainer-clean cd ../mgcp $(MAKE) /$(MAKEFLAGS) -f Makefile.nmake maintainer-clean cd .. cd xxx $(MAKE) /$(MAKEFLAGS) -f Makefile.nmake maintainer-clean cd .. Finally add a copy command to install-plugins rule: xcopy mgcp\*.dll $(VERSION) /d xcopy xxx\*.dll $(VERSION) /d 3.3 Changes to the top level Makefile.am Unfortunately there are quite some several places in the top level Makefile.am that need to be altered for adding a plugin. Add your plugin to the plugin_libs and plugin_ldadd: plugin_libs = \ plugins/gryphon/gryphon.la \ plugins/mgcp/mgcp.la \ plugins/xxx/xxx.la if ENABLE_STATIC plugin_ldadd = (plugin_libs) else # ENABLE_STATIC plugin_ldadd = \ "-dlopen" self \ "-dlopen" plugins/gryphon/gryphon.la \ "-dlopen" plugins/mgcp/mgcp.la \ "-dlopen" plugins/xxx/xxx.la 3.4 Changes to top level configure.in You need to add your plugins Makefile to the AC_OUTPUT rule in the configure.in AC_OUTPUT( Makefile doc/Makefile gtk/Makefile packaging/Makefile packaging/nsis/Makefile packaging/rpm/Makefile packaging/rpm/wireshark.spec packaging/svr4/Makefile packaging/svr4/checkinstall packaging/svr4/pkginfo plugins/Makefile plugins/gryphon/Makefile plugins/mgcp/Makefile plugins/xxx/Makefile tools/Makefile tools/lemon/Makefile ,) 3.5 Changes to the installers If you want to include your plugin in an installer you have to add lines in the NSIS installer Makefile.nmake and wireshark.nsi files, and the U3 installer makefile.nmake file. For the NSIS installer: Add ../../plugins/xxx/xxx.dll to the list of plugins for the PLUGINS variable in packaging/nsis/Makefile.nmake. Add File "..\..\plugins\xxx\xxx.dll" to the list of "File" statements in the "Dissector Plugins" section in packaging/nsis/wireshark.nsi. For the U3 installer: Add $(COPY) $(TOPDIR)\plugins\xxx\xxx.dll $(DEVICE)\plugins\$(VERSION) $(COPY_FLAGS) to the list of commands for the "distribution" target in packaging/u3/win32/makefile.nmake. 4. Development and plugins on Unix Plugins make some aspects of development easier and some harder. The first thing is that you'll have to run autogen.sh and configure once more to setup your build environment. The good news is that if you are working on a single plugin then you will find recompiling the plugin MUCH faster than recompiling a dissector and then linking it back into Wireshark. The bad news is that Wireshark will not use the plugins unless the plugins are installed in one of the places it expects them to find. One way of dealing with this problem is to set an environment variable when running Wireshark: WIRESHARK_RUN_FROM_BUILD_DIRECTORY=1. Another way to deal with this problem is to set up a working root for wireshark, say in $HOME/build/root and build wireshark to install there ./configure --prefix=${HOME}/build/root;make install then subsequent rebuilds/installs of your plugin can be accomplished by going to the plugins/xxx directory and running make install 5. Update "old style" plugins 5.1 How to update an "old style" plugin (using plugin_register and plugin_reg_handoff functions). The plugin registration has changed with the extension of the build scripts. These now generate the additional code needed for plugin encapsulation in plugin.c. When using the new style build scripts, stips the parts outlined below: o Remove the following include statments: #include #include "moduleinfo.h" o Removed the definition: #ifndef ENABLE_STATIC G_MODULE_EXPORT gchar version[] = VERSION; #endif o Move relevant code from the blocks and delete these functions: #ifndef ENABLE_STATIC plugin_reg_handoff() .... #endif #ifndef ENABLE_STATIC plugin_register() .... #endif This will leave a clean dissector source file without plugin specifics. 5.2 How to update an "old style" plugin (using plugin_init function) The plugin registering has changed between 0.10.9 and 0.10.10; everyone is encouraged to update their plugins as outlined below: o Remove following include statements from all plugin sources: #include "plugins/plugin_api.h" #include "plugins/plugin_api_defs.h" o Remove the init function. o Add a new Makefile.common file with the lists of source files and headers. o Change the Makefile.am and Makefile.nmake files to match those of the DOCSIS plugin. ---------------- Ed Warnicke Guy Harris Derived and expanded from the plugin section of README.developers which was originally written by James Coe Gilbert Ramirez Jeff Foster Olivier Abad Laurent Deniel Jaap Keuter