Chapter 3: Getting and Installing Ethereal

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Introduction

In this chapter we will cover all of the steps necessary to complete a functioning installation of the Ethereal 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 Red Hat 9.0 platform and the Solaris 9.0 platform. We have chosen Red Hat 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; but if the instructions do vary, it will be minimal. We chose Solaris because of its common use in commercial and government environments, and for its ease of management and software installation process. For the Windows side we will be focusing on Windows 2000 Professional, due to its common use. However, since Windows XP is also a popular choice these days, we tested the installation process on it as well. Although it won’t be covered in this book, the installation on Windows XP was exactly the same as Windows 2000.

For the installations in this chapter, we started with fresh installations of all three of the operating systems (OSs). For Red Hat 9.0 we chose the workstation install option so that the proper development libraries would be included. In the Solaris 9.0 install we used the Entire Distribution option. For the Windows 2000 Professional installation, we just accepted the default installation parameters. These types of installations often install needless software, and leave many security vulnerabilities wide open. There are a lot of best practices that you should follow when installing new systems, and 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. You will also need to verify that your networking is set up and functioning properly, or you might not be able to see any packets to analyze!

Let’s take a moment to introduce you to the way we approached this chapter. When it comes to computers, networking, and security, some of you are beginners and some of you are pros. Based on the varying technical abilities of the target audience of the book, we tried to approach almost every subject as if we were learning it for the first time. Our only assumption is that you do have a basic understanding of the operating system and how to use it. Knowing that this

can be redundant information for those of you who are already comfortable with the terminology and procedures, we made the step-by-step instructions for each installation easy to find and read. This chapter will serve as an excellent skimming reference for the more experienced reader. The only time we will have a lengthier explanation with the procedures is when there is possibly some pitfall to watch for, or during description of certain side notes that might be helpful. We keep all of our longer descriptions and discussions outside of the chapter installation instructions. So, let’s start installing Ethereal!

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