Nmap Announce mailing list archives
Re: distrbuted nmap?
From: "Juan M. Bello Rivas" <jmbello () itchy coverlink es>
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 09:55:39 +0100
Hi Jose, On Mon, Mar 20, 2000 at 06:53:17PM -0500, Jose Nazario wrote:
regarding the use of PVM, it was raised that PVM, MPI and other Beowulf solutions are fantastic for CPU intensive applications (like the molecular dynamics simulations i run from time to time) but would be overkill for something ike nmap. i quite disagree. i think that PVM actually provides a nice framework for what you would want to do with a distributed application like nmap. like TCP, PVM keeps track of connections and messages sent, it has very good error handling, dynamic group assignments and the like. it runs over TCP, so it provides a nice reliable data stream over the WAN. heck, it even works on NT (for the reportedly in the works nmap port to NT) these are all the kinds of things you would demand in a framework for a distrubuted application. just because it's not CPU intensive does not mean it's overkill, i'm just asking why reinvent the wheel?
I do also think PVM is overkill for a distributed implementation of nmap. While agreeing totally with you in the usefulness of the PVM API when I set up PVM some time ago I found it a bit heavy-weight since it depends on rlogind and stuff like that. I have the feeling that it would make the deployment of a distributed nmap harder than an ad-hoc solution (please correct me if I'm wrong). See you -- "we find ourselves in pictures on the net blinded by science addicted to devotion" Covenant: Dead Stars
Current thread:
- Re: distrbuted nmap? Jose Nazario (Mar 20)
- Re: distrbuted nmap? Juan M. Bello Rivas (Mar 21)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: distrbuted nmap? Lorell Hathcock (Mar 20)
- Re: distrbuted nmap? ajax (Mar 20)
- Re: distrbuted nmap? Jose Nazario (Mar 21)