3.2. The Wireshark Git repository
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## 3.2. The Wireshark Git repository

Git is used to keep track of the changes made to the Wireshark source code. The official repository is hosted at GitLab, and incoming changes are evaluated and reviewed there. For more information on GitLab see their documentation.

Why Git? Git is a fast, flexible way of managing source code. It allows large scale distributed development and ensures data integrity.

Why GitLab? GitLab makes it easy to contribute. You can make changes locally and push them to your own work area at gitlab.com, or if your change is minor you can make changes entirely within your web browser.

Historical trivia: GitLab is the fourth iteration of our source code repository and code review system. Wireshark originally used Concurrent Versions System (CVS) and migrated to Subversion in July 2004. We migrated from Subversion to Git and Gerrit in January 2014, and from Gerrit to GitLab in August 2020.

Using Wireshark’s GitLab project you can:

- Keep your private sources up to date with very little effort.
- Receive notifications about code reviews and issues.
- Get the source files from any previous release (or any other point in time).
- Browse and search the source code using a web interface.
- See which person changed a specific piece of code.

### 3.2.1. Git Naming Conventions

Like most revision control systems, Git uses branching to manage different copies of the source code and allow parallel development. Wireshark releases use the following branch naming conventions:

master. Main feature development and odd-numbered development releases.

release-x.y. Stable release maintenance. For example, release-4.6 is used to manage the 4.6.x official releases.

Tags for major Wireshark releases and release candidates consist of a “v” followed by a version number such as “v4.6.1” or “v4.6.3rc0”. Prior to October 2025, major releases additionally had a tag prefixed with “wireshark-” followed by a version number, such as “wireshark-4.4.0”.

Tags for major Stratoshark releases and release candidates consist of an “ssv” followed by a version number such as “ssv1.2.3” or “ssv1.3.4rc0”.

Tags created after August 1, 2024 are signed using SSH. This includes the tags for versions 4.4.0rc1, 4.4.0, 4.2.7, and 4.0.17. If you wish to verify these tags, you must have gpg.ssh.allowedSignersFile configured and have the following entry in your “allowed signers” file:

    gerald@wireshark.org namespaces="git" ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIBHe1qOxwBietT54lZ3qawTc8B9unWP+T3JVR9l2rQaP

Tags were signed using GPG prior to August 2024.

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