Snort Configure Error: ERROR! dnet header not found – CentOS Linux

Earlier when installing snort on a CentOS Linux server I ran into a configure error. The error related to the fact that libdnet was not located on the server and while it was installed I did not have the libdnet-devel package installed. Below is the sample output from the configure error, an expandable complete output of the configure error, and the yum command to install libdnet-devel to move past this error when installing snort.

Configure Error Configuring snort On CentOS Linux:

[expand title=”dnet header Error Configuring snort” swaptitle=”Close”]
[root@dev ~]# ./configure –with-mysql –enable-dynamicplugin
configure: WARNING: unrecognized options: –with-mysql
checking for a BSD-compatible install… /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane… yes
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p… /bin/mkdir -p
checking for gawk… gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)… yes
checking whether to enable maintainer-specific portions of Makefiles… no
checking for style of include used by make… GNU
checking for gcc… gcc
checking whether the C compiler works… yes
checking for C compiler default output file name… a.out
checking for suffix of executables…
checking whether we are cross compiling… no
checking for suffix of object files… o
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler… yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g… yes
checking for gcc option to accept ISO C89… none needed
checking dependency style of gcc… gcc3
checking for gcc option to accept ISO C99… -std=gnu99
checking for gcc -std=gnu99 option to accept ISO Standard C… (cached) -std=gnu99
checking for gcc… (cached) gcc
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler… (cached) yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g… (cached) yes
checking for gcc option to accept ISO C89… (cached) none needed
checking dependency style of gcc… (cached) gcc3
checking build system type… x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
checking host system type… x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
checking how to print strings… printf
checking for a sed that does not truncate output… /bin/sed
checking for grep that handles long lines and -e… /bin/grep
checking for egrep… /bin/grep -E
checking for fgrep… /bin/grep -F
checking for ld used by gcc… /usr/bin/ld
checking if the linker (/usr/bin/ld) is GNU ld… yes
checking for BSD- or MS-compatible name lister (nm)… /usr/bin/nm -B
checking the name lister (/usr/bin/nm -B) interface… BSD nm
checking whether ln -s works… yes
checking the maximum length of command line arguments… 98304
checking whether the shell understands some XSI constructs… yes
checking whether the shell understands “+=”… yes
checking how to convert x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu file names to x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu format… func_convert_file_noop
checking how to convert x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu file names to toolchain format… func_convert_file_noop
checking for /usr/bin/ld option to reload object files… -r
checking for objdump… objdump
checking how to recognize dependent libraries… pass_all
checking for dlltool… no
checking how to associate runtime and link libraries… printf %s\n
checking for ar… ar
checking for archiver @FILE support… @
checking for strip… strip
checking for ranlib… ranlib
checking command to parse /usr/bin/nm -B output from gcc object… ok
checking for sysroot… no
checking for mt… no
checking if : is a manifest tool… no
checking how to run the C preprocessor… gcc -E
checking for ANSI C header files… yes
checking for sys/types.h… yes
checking for sys/stat.h… yes
checking for stdlib.h… yes
checking for string.h… yes
checking for memory.h… yes
checking for strings.h… yes
checking for inttypes.h… yes
checking for stdint.h… yes
checking for unistd.h… yes
checking for dlfcn.h… yes
checking for objdir… .libs
checking if gcc supports -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions… no
checking for gcc option to produce PIC… -fPIC -DPIC
checking if gcc PIC flag -fPIC -DPIC works… yes
checking if gcc static flag -static works… yes
checking if gcc supports -c -o file.o… yes
checking if gcc supports -c -o file.o… (cached) yes
checking whether the gcc linker (/usr/bin/ld -m elf_x86_64) supports shared libraries… yes
checking whether -lc should be explicitly linked in… no
checking dynamic linker characteristics… GNU/Linux ld.so
checking how to hardcode library paths into programs… immediate
checking whether stripping libraries is possible… yes
checking if libtool supports shared libraries… yes
checking whether to build shared libraries… yes
checking whether to build static libraries… yes
checking for ranlib… (cached) ranlib
checking whether byte ordering is bigendian… no
checking for inline… inline
checking for stdbool.h that conforms to C99… yes
checking for _Bool… yes
checking for bison… bison
checking for flex… flex
checking for inttypes.h… (cached) yes
checking math.h usability… yes
checking math.h presence… yes
checking for math.h… yes
checking paths.h usability… yes
checking paths.h presence… yes
checking for paths.h… yes
checking for stdlib.h… (cached) yes
checking for string.h… (cached) yes
checking for strings.h… (cached) yes
checking for unistd.h… (cached) yes
checking wchar.h usability… yes
checking wchar.h presence… yes
checking for wchar.h… yes
checking sys/sockio.h usability… no
checking sys/sockio.h presence… no
checking for sys/sockio.h… no
checking for floor in -lm… yes
checking for ceil in -lm… yes
checking uuid/uuid.h usability… no
checking uuid/uuid.h presence… no
checking for uuid/uuid.h… no
checking for inet_ntoa in -lnsl… yes
checking for socket in -lsocket… no
checking whether printf must be declared… no
checking whether fprintf must be declared… no
checking whether syslog must be declared… no
checking whether puts must be declared… no
checking whether fputs must be declared… no
checking whether fputc must be declared… no
checking whether fopen must be declared… no
checking whether fclose must be declared… no
checking whether fwrite must be declared… no
checking whether fflush must be declared… no
checking whether getopt must be declared… no
checking whether bzero must be declared… no
checking whether bcopy must be declared… no
checking whether memset must be declared… no
checking whether strtol must be declared… no
checking whether strcasecmp must be declared… no
checking whether strncasecmp must be declared… no
checking whether strerror must be declared… no
checking whether perror must be declared… no
checking whether socket must be declared… no
checking whether sendto must be declared… no
checking whether vsnprintf must be declared… no
checking whether snprintf must be declared… no
checking whether strtoul must be declared… no
checking for sigaction… yes
checking for strlcpy… no
checking for strlcat… no
checking for strerror… yes
checking for vswprintf… yes
checking for wprintf… yes
checking for memrchr… yes
checking for inet_ntop… yes
checking for snprintf… yes
checking size of char… 1
checking size of short… 2
checking size of int… 4
checking size of long int… 8
checking size of long long int… 8
checking size of unsigned int… 4
checking size of unsigned long int… 8
checking size of unsigned long long int… 8
checking for u_int8_t… yes
checking for u_int16_t… yes
checking for u_int32_t… yes
checking for u_int64_t… yes
checking for uint8_t… yes
checking for uint16_t… yes
checking for uint32_t… yes
checking for uint64_t… yes
checking for int8_t… yes
checking for int16_t… yes
checking for int32_t… yes
checking for int64_t… yes
checking for boolean… no
checking for INADDR_NONE… yes
checking for __FUNCTION__… yes
checking for pcap_datalink in -lpcap… yes
checking for pcap_lex_destroy… no
checking for pcap_lib_version… yes
checking pcre.h usability… yes
checking pcre.h presence… yes
checking for pcre.h… yes
checking for pcre_compile in -lpcre… yes
checking for libpcre version 6.0 or greater… yes
checking dnet.h usability… no
checking dnet.h presence… no
checking for dnet.h… no
checking dumbnet.h usability… no
checking dumbnet.h presence… no
checking for dumbnet.h… no

ERROR! dnet header not found, go get it from
http://code.google.com/p/libdnet/ or use the –with-dnet-*
options, if you have it installed in an unusual place
[root@dev ~]#
[/expand]

To resolve the above error you need to install libdnet-devel using yum on CentOS Linux or something like apt-get on Ubuntu Linux.

Install libdnet-devel On CentOS Linux:

You should now be able to move past the snort configure error and proceed to compiling snort on CentOS Linux.