Ncat-Lua: plugin system

[Jacek Wielemborek <wielemborekj1 () gmail com>]

Hi guys,

The discussion in the thread "Ncat + Lua - GSOC feedback request" got
pretty long and multithreaded, so in order to make sure that the ideas
I like most don't get lost, I thought I'd start new thread(s) there.
In this particular one, I'd like to encourage you to discuss the Lua
"modules"/"plugins" system, as Daniel Miller originally proposed it
(http://seclists.org/nmap-dev/2013/q2/461) :

2013/6/17 Daniel Miller <bonsaiviking () gmail com>:
> On 06/17/2013 11:46 AM, David Fifield wrote:
> > What I'm saying is that trading the syntax
> >         ncat -t
> > for something like
> >         ncat --lua-script telnet.lua
> > is bad. Lua code could be used internally to do some of the things we do
> > now with code in the middle of read/write loops. On the other hand, C
> > code could also be used to do that, with better factoring of the main
> > program.
>
> Do you suppose that (farther down the road,) Ncat could expose an API for
> adding and consuming command-line options within Lua? The model I'm
> imagining would treat the Lua components more as "modules" than "scripts,"
> enabling a different set of features depending on which are "loaded." For
> example, this simple connection:
>
>      ncat nmap.org 12345
>
> Could become a connection to a Telnet server over SSL like so:
>
>     ncat --with telnet,ssl nmap.org 12345
>
> Or via a SOCKS proxy like:
>
>     ncat --with socks5 --via proxy.example.com nmap.org 12345
>
> where the --via option is valid because a --with module of "proxy" type was
> loaded. Alternatively, existing short options (-t, -C, etc) could be
> "shortcuts" that imply the loading of a specific feature set.
>
> Caveat: This is a brainstorm post. I'm not suggesting that this exact syntax
> be adopted. The idea was inspired by the way Ruby modules are used as
> Mixins, especially within Metasploit (e.g. include
> Msf::Exploit::Remote::TCP)
>
> Dan

What do you think about this idea? What would you expect from such a
feature to make it intuitive yet powerful? What problems would you
anticipate?

Jacek
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