How to install Wireshark on Ubuntu 17.04

How to install Wireshark on Ubuntu 17.04

Wireshark is a free, cross platform and open source packet analyzer using the Qt widget toolkit. It is used for network troubleshooting, analysis, software and communications protocol development, and education. It supports GUI and allows the user to put network interface controllers on the network' s traffic. This tutorial will explain on how to install Wireshark on Ubuntu 17.04.

Installation procedure

Before beginning the installation procedure, execute the following command to add the PPA for KKEdit package in the repo list in the target system.

root@linuxhelp1:~# add-apt-repository ppa:wireshark-dev/stable
 Latest stable Wireshark releases back-ported from Debian package versions.
Back-porting script is available at https://github.com/rbalint/pkg-wireshark-ubuntu-ppa
From Ubuntu 16.04 you also need to enable " universe"   repository, see:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/148638/how-do-i-enable-the-universe-repository
 More info: https://launchpad.net/~wireshark-dev/+archive/ubuntu/stable
Press [ENTER] to continue or ctrl-c to cancel adding it  
gpg: keybox ' /tmp/tmpowj1nqea/pubring.gpg'  created
gpg: /tmp/tmpowj1nqea/trustdb.gpg: trustdb created
gpg: key D875551314ECA0F0: public key " Launchpad PPA for Wireshark Developers"  imported
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1
OK

The repositories are added successfully to the target system. Execute the following command to update the apt sources-list.

root@linuxhelp1:~# apt-get update
Get:1 http://ppa.launchpad.net/wireshark-dev/stable/ubuntu zesty InRelease [21.3 kB]                              
Hit:2 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu zesty InRelease                                                         
Get:3 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu zesty-updates InRelease [89.2 kB]                              
Get:4 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu zesty-security InRelease [89.2 kB]         
Get:5 http://ppa.launchpad.net/wireshark-dev/stable/ubuntu zesty/main i386 Packages [3,276 B]
Get:6 http://ppa.launchpad.net/wireshark-dev/stable/ubuntu zesty/main amd64 Packages [3,280 B]                    
Get:7 http://ppa.launchpad.net/wireshark-dev/stable/ubuntu zesty/main Translation-en [1,784 B]                    
Get:8 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu zesty-backports InRelease [89.2 kB]                               
Get:9 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu zesty-security/main amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [5,812 B]
Get:10 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu zesty-security/universe amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [8,904 B]
Get:11 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu zesty-security/universe DEP-11 64x64 Icons [27.0 kB]
Get:12 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu zesty-updates/main amd64 Packages [126 kB]
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Fetched 911 kB in 7s (127 kB/s)                                                                                   
Reading package lists... Done

The apt sources-list is updated in the target system. Next, install the wireshark package by running the following command.

root@linuxhelp1:~# apt-get install wireshark
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree      
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  geoip-database-extra javascript-common libc-ares2 libjs-openlayers liblua5.2-0 libnghttp2-14 libnl-route-3-200
  libsmi2ldbl libssh-gcrypt-4 libwireshark-data libwireshark8 libwiretap6 libwscodecs1 libwsutil7 wireshark-common
  wireshark-qt
Suggested packages:
  apache2 | lighttpd | httpd snmp-mibs-downloader wireshark-doc
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  geoip-database-extra javascript-common libc-ares2 libjs-openlayers liblua5.2-0 libnghttp2-14 libnl-route-3-200
  libsmi2ldbl libssh-gcrypt-4 libwireshark-data libwireshark8 libwiretap6 libwscodecs1 libwsutil7 wireshark
  wireshark-common wireshark-qt
0 upgraded, 17 newly installed, 0 to remove and 57 not upgraded.
Need to get 30.4 MB of archives.
After this operation, 134 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
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Setting up wireshark (2.2.6+g32dac6a-2ubuntu0.17.04) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.24-9ubuntu2.2) ...

Once the package is installed, open the Ubuntu dashboard and type the package name in the search bar and click on the icon to run the application.

Wasn' t that an easy installation procedure? The Wireshark implements the user interface using the pcap to capture packets.