Re: nmap xml log file users/programs ????

[Rob Nicholls <robert () robnicholls co uk>]

On Wed, 22 Dec 2010 14:29:23 +1100, dave b <db.pub.mail () gmail com> 
wrote:
> IMHO the output of a script should have the target information
> separated out from the 'output' of the script.
> Furthermore, some standard nodes for (xml) script output would be a
> 'nice to have'.

This is already on the TODO list (it's been there a while though):

o Nmap should have a better way to handle XML script output.
 o We currently just stick the current script output text into an XML 
tag.

It's something I'd also be glad to see, although I would probably have 
to edit some scripts.

One thing I'd quite like to see is error messages separated out from 
the main output, so I don't have to check the script output for phrases 
like "ERROR: Server refused recursion", "ERROR: Failed to read 
Packet.GIOP", "Method RCPT returned a unhandled status code." or "Failed 
to issue EHLO command". Even if we don't have separate XML information, 
perhaps we can begin by consistently putting "ERROR: " in front of any 
error messages?

> So really how many people are actually using the nmap xml file output
> at all? -- and if so how!

I'm using it regularly. I'm using Ruby scripts at the (primarily 
Windows) command line, with Kris' Nmap::Parser library [1], to produce 
output in both text and CSV format (it's dead easy to get the 
information into an array and then use Ruby's 'csv' library to write it 
as a CSV file somewhere).

I could have used XPath with my Ruby scripts, and I do with some other 
XML files, but Nmap::Parser seems to be a lot easier to use. You should 
be able to use existing Ruby libraries like Ruby-OCI8, MySQL/Ruby or 
sequel to store the data into various databases, if you don't want to 
create text or csv output like me.

Rob

[1] http://rubynmap.sourceforge.net/

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