This post will go over the “bug” that happens when you launch Wireshark in Ubuntu. When you load Wireshark in Ubuntu by default the program will load but no network cards are selectable!
When I first saw this I figured my network card/drivers weren’t compatible with wireshark. I did some searching around and it turns out that the issue is caused by not running Wireshark as root.
If you want to run Wireshark in Ubuntu you will need to run it as root. To do this you can either run Wireshark from the command line using:
- sudo wireshark
- Change the shortcut to the program to run as root
NOTE – If you can’t run the program as root from the command line using “Sudo wireshark” it’s most likely caused by you not giving “sudo” a password. You can do this by typing: “sudo passwd”. You will have to enter a password for sudo.
At the command line type “sudo wireshark” and the program should work as expected. If you don’t want to have to type that in every time all you have to do is either edit the existing shortcut icon or make a new one and change it’s properties. To run a program as root from gnome interface you need to preface the command with “gksudo”. To do this just right click the shortcut and select “properties”. This will open a new window. Click on the command line. Leave the existing “wireshark” command there. Copy and paste “gksudo” before the command. Make sure there is a space between “gksudo” and “wireshark”.
Double click the icon to verify that it works. Hope this helped you to get the network cards in Wireshark to show up for you 🙂