$Id$ 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 Ethereal 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 The source files and header files for your dissector 2.1 AUTHORS, COPYING, and ChangeLog The AUTHORS, COPYING, and ChangeLog are the standard sort of GPL project files; see plugins/docsis for examples. 2.2 Makefile.am and Makefile.nmake For your plugins/xxx/Makefile.am and plugins/xxx/Makefile.nmake files, see the corresponding files in plugins/docsis. Replace all occurrences of "docsis" 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 the header files for your dissector, if any, in the DISSECTOR_INCLUDES variable. (The DISSECTOR_INCLUDES variable should not include moduleinfo.h.) 2.4 moduleinfo.h Your plugins/xxx/moduleinfo.h file is used to set the version information for the plugin. An example follows: /* Included *after* config.h, in order to re-define these macros */ #ifdef PACKAGE #undef PACKAGE #endif /* Name of package */ #define PACKAGE "xxx" #ifdef VERSION #undef VERSION #endif /* Version number of package */ #define VERSION "0.0.8" 3. Changes to existing Ethereal files You will also need to change the plugins/Makefile.am toplevel Makefile.am, the plugins/Makefile.nmake toplevel 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 finally add to the clean rule 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 .. 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 (two times): plugin_libs = \ plugins/gryphon/gryphon.la \ plugins/mgcp/mgcp.la \ plugins/xxx/xxx.la if ENABLE_STATIC plugin_ldadd = \ plugins/gryphon/gryphon.o \ plugins/mgcp/mgcp.o \ plugins/xxx/xxx.o 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/ethereal.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 ,) 4. Development and plugins Plugins make some aspects of development easier and some harder. 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 ethereal. The bad news is that wireshark will not use the plugin unless the plugin is installed in one of the places it expects to look. One way to deal with this problem is to set up a working root for ethereal, say in $HOME/build/root and build ethereal to install there ./configure --prefix=${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. 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