From 7b6487a8a5018eb9e0e37bfcfe75c319d917ffed Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Guy Harris Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:19:13 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] Note that libpcap links with libnl by default - and that this shouldn't break binary compatibility, so that's not a reason to disable that. --- README.linux | 20 ++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 20 insertions(+) diff --git a/README.linux b/README.linux index dd95913..226b243 100644 --- a/README.linux +++ b/README.linux @@ -69,6 +69,26 @@ file says: file linux/Documentation/networking/filter.txt for more information. If unsure, say N. +Note that, by default, libpcap will, if libnl is present, build with it; +it uses libnl to support monitor mode on mac80211 devices. There is a +configuration option to disable building with libnl, but, if that option +is chosen, the monitor-mode APIs (as used by tcpdump's "-I" flag, and as +will probably be used by other applications in the future) won't work +properly on mac80211 devices. + +Linux's run-time linker allows shared libraries to be linked with other +shared libraries, which means that if an older version of a shared +library doesn't require routines from some other shared library, and a +later version of the shared library does require those routines, the +later version of the shared library can be linked with that other shared +library and, if it's otherwise binary-compatible with the older version, +can replace that older version without breaking applications built with +the older version, and without breaking configure scripts or the build +procedure for applications whose configure script doesn't use the +pcap-config script if they build with the shared library. (The build +procedure for applications whose configure scripts use the pcap-config +script if present will not break even if they build with the static +library.) Statistics: Statistics reported by pcap are platform specific. The statistics