Re: Using TTL value of response packets on nmap port scans.

[Otto Airamo <otairamo () kapsi fi>]

On Thu, 12 Apr 2012, David Fifield wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 07:11:34AM +0300, Otto Airamo wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > It seems that I was explaining in the details WHAT I would like from Nmap,
> > but I was missing WHY this is needed.
> >
> > When port scan is executed over TCP, there is in most cases three relevant
> > cases that may occur in each port that is scanned.
> >
> > 1)
> > SYN-ACK packet is received. In most cases this means that port is open in
> > target host.
> >
> > 2)
> > No reply. In this case we do not know if target host is listening port. At
> > least it is known that from this scope* this port is not accessible in
> > target host. (*With scope I mean that either network firewall or personal
> > firewall blocks incoming SYN/outgoing RST/ICMP error message. It is
> > possible that port is open in target host and would answer with SYN-ACK if
> > packet would come from, for example, same network or different IP address)
> >
> > Important point here is that WE DO NOT KNOW if port is actually open (from
> > different scope)!
> >
> > 3) RST packet is received. Typically this means that port is closed in
> > target host. If RST packet is generated by target host TCP/IP stack
> > because port is closed, it does not matter what is the scope where we are
> > performing scan. Result will remain same even if scan would be performed
> > from same network/using any source IP address. At the same time RST packet
> > may be generated by firewall located between scanner and target host. If
> > scanner is not able to tell if RST packet is generated by target host or
> > device between, result of the scan will fall into same category as case
> > #2. (We do not know if port is open)
> >
> > If scanner would be able to detect difference between RST packet
> > generated by target host TCP/IP stack and other cases, scanner would
> > have better knowledge of target.
> >
> > Options are:
> > a) Target host TCP/IP stack generated RST packet => we know that port is
> > closed
> > b) Somebody else than target host TCP/IP stack generated RST packet => we
> > do not know if port is actually open even we do not have access from this
> > scope.
> >
> > Now we have following network setup:
> >
> > scanner -- FW -- target
> >
> > Firewall is configured to RST connections to port 22. Some ports are
> > allowd, mosts of the ports are dropped silently.
> >
> > Result of nmap could be:
> > # nmap --reason target --top-ports=10
> > Interesting ports on target:
> > PORT     STATE    SERVICE      REASON           TTL
> > 21/tcp   open     ftp          syn-ack          62
> > 22/tcp   refused  ssh          reset (ttl?)     63
> > 23/tcp   closed   telnet       reset            62
> > 25/tcp   filtered smtp         no-response      N/A
> > 80/tcp   open     http         syn-ack          62
> > 110/tcp  filtered pop3         no-response      N/A
> > 139/tcp  filtered netbios-ssn  no-response      N/A
> > 443/tcp  filtered https        no-response      N/A
> > 445/tcp  filtered microsoft-ds no-response      N/A
> > 3389/tcp filtered ms-term-serv no-response      N/A
>
> Thanks for explaining what you mean. The output example especially makes
> it clear.
>
> I don't think we would add a TTL column to the output by default. The
> information is already in the XML for tools that want to use it. Also,
> by convention, states like "closed" are understood to mean that a RST
> was received, or whatever else is appropriate for the type of port scan.
> The --reason flag is for those who want to see the reason without any
> interpretation.
>
> The firewalk script also does what you describe in a thorough manner.
> http://nmap.org/nsedoc/scripts/firewalk
>
> David Fifield

Hello,

Actually:
http://nmap.org/nsedoc/scripts/firewalk
is not really doing same thing as there TTL value of scanner host is 
alternated. In my idea scanner does not change anything compared to 
regular scan. It is just using result of the TTL value target host is 
sending. I believe that --badsum option is actually closer to behavior 
that I am proposing.

Main benefit with my proposal is that behavior outside of the nmap does 
not need to change. There is no need to send any extra packets to detect 
situation I descript in previous emails. That was the main thing that I 
wanted to bring out this idea. I wanted to get some comments if this would 
give some real added value in real life scenarios.

TTL value would be trivial to add to nmap output with some new flag. Would 
you add this to mainstream if patch would be provided? If you see that 
this does not add any value in real life scenarios, let's not add just one 
more "use-only-in-a-lab" command line parameter.

Otto Airamo

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