Nmap Development mailing list archives
RE: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL)
From: "Arun Vishwanathan" <arun.vishwanathan () nevisnetworks com>
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 12:20:29 +0530
I agree with your comments totally. I prefer either TCL/Python. My main point is that we use a language which is already widely used by most people. Using a new language will delay the adoption in my opinion. Regards, Arun -----Original Message----- From: paulrigor () gmail com [mailto:paulrigor () gmail com] On Behalf Of Paul Rigor Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 12:07 PM To: Arun Vishwanathan Cc: Fyodor; nmap-dev () insecure org Subject: Re: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL) I say python. You can even wrap nmap and use it a module. Have python handle the application logic and scripting language parser adn have it invoke appropriate NMAP functionality. Python has great string processing facilities as well as an XML parser. It's also *very* portable, true OOP, good unit test, debugging might prove cumbersome though. Oh, also you can freeze python scripts/programs and have them run as executables (which of course rely on shared python libraries and an nmap shared lib, is there already such a thing). If you've ever used python, you will also definitely cut development. Paul On 5/22/06, Arun Vishwanathan <arun.vishwanathan () nevisnetworks com> wrote: Forgot to add a point. - TCL will cut the development time drastically and help in rolling out this feature faster. Regards, Arun -----Original Message----- From: nmap-dev-bounces () insecure org [mailto: nmap-dev-bounces () insecure org <mailto:nmap-dev-bounces () insecure org> ] On Behalf Of Arun Vishwanathan Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 11:36 AM To: Fyodor; nmap-dev () insecure org Subject: RE: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL) Fyodor, Why can't we use TCL as the scripting language? I say TCL because of the following reasons - TCL is easily extensible by writing custom commands in C and exporting them as TCL functions. - TCL provides a very decent syntax and provides all common programming constructs in addition to in-built commands for string handling/regex etc. - TCL is used by most networking companies and hence would be easy for companies to integrate NMAP commands into their existing frameworks thus making nmap an integral part of their test infrastructure (like we do at Nevis Networks :)). - TCL integrates easily with expect and which can be used to automate remote scanning. You could potentially launch nmaps from multiple hosts all controlled from a single controller script written using send/expect. This may make sense for scanning larger networks where an admin can logically divide his network and scan parallely. My 2 cents. Hope the above makes sense. Regards, Arun -----Original Message----- From: nmap-dev-bounces () insecure org [mailto: nmap-dev-bounces () insecure org <mailto:nmap-dev-bounces () insecure org> ] On Behalf Of Fyodor Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 6:50 AM To: nmap-dev () insecure org Subject: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL) One of the Google SoC projects that I'm most excited about is adding a scripting engine to Nmap. Don't worry Renaud, we won't really call it NASL :). And this doesn't mean Nmap is becoming a vulnerability scanner. Scripts can be used for all sorts of things. For example, KX's recent suggestion of looking up AS numbers and whois data. Or you could write a custom script to query your own proprietary applications on your network. Or vulnerability detection. Or maybe check for open proxies. There are tons of options. So I just wrote up a requirements doc for the project: http://www.insecure.org/nmap/SoC/Scripting.html Boy, SoC is a great program but it sure keeps me writing a lot of long text files :). The good news is that the final student selection should be announced within the next couple days and then we'll move toward writing code. But doing the initial design properly is obviously critical. So do reply if you have suggestions. For what it is worth, we're currently looking at LUA as the embedded scripting language of choice. Anyone have experience in this area? Cheers, -F _______________________________________________ Sent through the nmap-dev mailing list http://cgi.insecure.org/mailman/listinfo/nmap-dev _______________________________________________ Sent through the nmap-dev mailing list http://cgi.insecure.org/mailman/listinfo/nmap-dev _______________________________________________ Sent through the nmap-dev mailing list http://cgi.insecure.org/mailman/listinfo/nmap-dev _______________________________________________ Sent through the nmap-dev mailing list http://cgi.insecure.org/mailman/listinfo/nmap-dev
Current thread:
- Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL) Fyodor (May 22)
- Re: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL) doug (May 23)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- RE: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL) Arun Vishwanathan (May 22)
- RE: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL) Brandon Enright (May 22)
- RE: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL) Arun Vishwanathan (May 22)
- Re: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL) Paul Rigor (May 22)
- Re: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL) David Warde-Farley (May 22)
- Re: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL) Paul Rigor (May 22)
- Re: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL) Fyodor (May 23)
- Re: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL) Paul Rigor (May 22)
- RE: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL) Arun Vishwanathan (May 22)
- RE: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL) Arun Vishwanathan (May 22)
- RE: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL) Arun Vishwanathan (May 23)
- Re: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL) Diman Todorov (May 23)