Wireshark dissector update?

[damienrg]

Hi, I would like to update the wireshark dissector in order to:

• make it working with newer version of wireshark
• make it working when compiling from wireshark source or as is (ie without wireshark source)
• maybe send this dissector upstream

To begin implementing this I have the following questions:

• should I be backward compatible with the previous wireshark version?
• do you prefer that I start a new repository including only the wireshark dissector? I think that it is better if we want to send this upstream as I could have 2 branch one for upstream and one for openambit.

[manisandro]

I know nothing about wireshark, but is there really the need to keep two completely separate codebases/branches for wireshark upstream and openambit?

[damienrg]

For wireshark upstream, we need:

• different CMakeLists.txt as it is included in the wireshark code
• Makefile.am, plugin.rc.in

Of course, we will always keep the same code for the dissector, it is just that the plumbing are different.

[manisandro]

So if the plugin is successfully sent upstream, I take the respective plumbing will just live upstream? Or is there a need to keep a downstream copy?

[damienrg]

It depends on how you build the plugin but I think that you build that out of the wireshark source. So in this case there is no need to keep the plumbing here. When openambit folks release a new version of the plugin someone should report it upstream to make it included in wireshark. To not bother openambit folks I can send PR to modify the plugin here, do the plumbing in my repo and sent it upstream.

[manisandro]

Makes sense to me. About backward compatibility: I'd say if you can keep compatibility with the wireshark versions current distros are packaging, it would simplify life for the packagers.