Nmap Development mailing list archives
Re: [PATCH] Add option to ignore version and time banner changes to ndiff
From: Fyodor <fyodor () insecure org>
Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 22:55:33 -0800
On Tue, Mar 01, 2011 at 10:32:09AM -0800, Dr. Jesus wrote:
I use ndiff in a cron job. This means I get email every time I run it regardless of whether the two scans being compared are actually different. This patch adds an option to ignore the time and version banner for the purposes of seeing if the two scans changed. When this option is enabled, two scans with identical results don't cause cron to send me mail.
Good point! But rather than add an option that users have to know about and remember to specify, maybe we can make the default smarter. How about making it so that the version/time difference header is shown ONLY if at least one other change is found? That way you will still get it in your normal reports, but ndiff will be silent by default in the special "no changes" chase. In verbose mode, we might as well always include the version/time changes because we still print a bunch of stuff in that mode even if there were no port/host changes. Also, I'd argue that this is a bug in the case where the Nmap version and time doesn't change: root@play> cp scanme4.xml scanme5.xml root@play> ndiff scanme4.xml scanme5.xml Nmap 5.51SVN at 2011-03-01 22:48 I'd argue that in non-verbose mode, we shouldn't be printing the unchanged version/time information in that case. After all, we normally only print information when it changes or is needed for context in non-verbose mode. This example is contrived, but it happened in another case where the first scan went quickly and the second one started during the same minute as the first one did. Are you up for updating your patch to accommodate these changes? Cheers, Fyodor _______________________________________________ Sent through the nmap-dev mailing list http://cgi.insecure.org/mailman/listinfo/nmap-dev Archived at http://seclists.org/nmap-dev/
Current thread:
- [PATCH] Add option to ignore version and time banner changes to ndiff Dr. Jesus (Mar 01)
- Re: [PATCH] Add option to ignore version and time banner changes to ndiff Fyodor (Mar 01)
- Re: [PATCH] Add option to ignore version and time banner changes to ndiff David Fifield (Mar 04)
- Re: [PATCH] Add option to ignore version and time banner changes to ndiff Fyodor (Mar 01)