Console warnings and “Running as root” dangerous

Question

When I run Wireshark as root in Backtrack Linux, I see these warnings from the console:

[email protected]: ~# wireshark
(wireshark:4751): GLib-GOBject-WARNING **: invalid cast from `GtkMenuItem' to `GtkMenu'
(wireshark:4751): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_menu_get_attach_widget: assertion `GTK_IS_MENU (menu)' failed
(wireshark:4751): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_set_sensitive: assertion `GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed

I also see a message box with this warning:

Running as user "root" and group "root". This could be dangerous.

How do I address these warnings? See screenshot.

Answer 1

There's no "this problem"; from the title and the screenshot, there appear to be two unrelated problems.

"Wireshark:5164" doesn't appear anywhere in that screenshot. Some "wireshark:4751" warnings appear; they're probably bugs in Wireshark wherein it's doing something incorrect with the GTK+ GUI toolkit it uses. If this happens with an UNMODIFIED version of Wireshark, report those bugs on the Wireshark bugzilla; give the full output of "wireshark -v", and an indication of what you were doing with the GUI at the moment tose messages were logged. If it happens with a version you've modified, and you've changed GUI code, make sure it isn't happening only in your version by trying it with an unmodified version; if it only happens in your version, you fix it by making your modified code use GTK+ correctly.

"Running as user "root" and group "root"" is a statement of fact, as is "This could be dangerous". To get Wireshark not to report that, don't run it as root. If you can't capture traffic when you don't run Wireshark as root, see the CaptureSetup/CapturePrivileges page of the Wireshark Wiki; you appear to be running on some Linux distribution, so check the "GNU/Linux distributions, Wireshark is installed using a package manager" and/or the "Other Linux based systems or other installation methods" sections.