Re: Nmap GUI

[Andreas Ericsson <ae () op5 se>]

Brandon Enright wrote:
> Fyodor wrote:
>
>
> > o Comparing results.  An option to show the differences between last
> >  weeks scan and the one I did today would be quite valuable.
>
>
> *Extremely* valuable.  I'd like to see Nmap get support for a database backend.
> Maybe MySQL or even support for multiple databases.

A database would add complexity but no extra value, unless you plan on 
keeping up to 100000 scan-results or more. Flat files are much more 
useful for this, really (one per scan). It would also be a lot faster 
and requires a whole lot less work for the programmer.

Database support should be in either an external, non-related script (I 
know some people who do this already), or supported through use of 
dlopen()'ed modules. It's not terribly difficult to add that 
functionality and it makes it a helluva lot easier for coders to 
contribute back-ends to nmap without Fyodor having to coordinate any of it.

> With a database output option you could do things like choose to store the last
> "N" Nmaps of a host and only view differences between dates/scans.  You could
> query the top ports open across all hosts in the database or even the fastest
> growing ports from the previous round of scans.
>
> While a command line interface could do all this I think a GUI would really
> shine with these features.  InProtect tried this but for Nmap it was very poor.

The GUI would just be the frontend. Putting the database code there 
would rob those who want it but don't run X or XP of its features.

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   andreas.ericsson () op5 se
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Lead Developer


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