Re: Getting started with NSE

[Brandon Enright <bmenrigh () ucsd edu>]

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On Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:46:00 -0400
Patrick Donnelly <batrick () batbytes com> wrote:

> Hello Raja,
>
> On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 3:01 PM, raja naresh <rajanaresh89 () gmail com>
> wrote:
> > I have been using nmap for a while now and I really want to get
> > started on the development side. I was not tracking any
> > developments of nmap until now and it's really interesting to know
> > that nmap has already support for scripting engine. Not sure if
> > this was already available in the version I was using (nmap-5.00)
> > but anyway, I already came to know about some of the details of NSE
> > from the GSoC page and I would be obliged if anyone could elicit
> > the reasons for choosing lua as the scripting language interface.
> > Anyone with any information or pointers to the developers list
> > where the decisions took place are really appreciated.
>
> I don't know if you'll find any reasons in the mailing list archives
> but a brief reasoning is provided in the NSE chapter of the Nmap
> Scanning Book [1].
>
> > I am a student and I am really looking forward to integrating a
> > high level scripting language such as python. I am thinking of it
> > to be my idea for my application for GSoC. Any sort of help is
> > welcome and appreciated.
>
> Python is not intended for use as a scripting language in the
> traditional sense. It is better suited for high-level application
> development (which we do use it for, in Zenmap).
>
> [1] http://nmap.org/book/nse-language.html

There was a lot of discussion about language choices in 2006.

http://seclists.org/nmap-dev/2006/q2/


Diman Todorov did the initial work.  See:

http://seclists.org/nmap-dev/2006/q2/136


And this thread for a discussion of languages:

http://seclists.org/nmap-dev/2006/q2/227


But in short, when Lua was chosen I think most people had a quizzical
look on their face.  I suspect most people weren't sure if it was the
"right" choice or not.  I think hindsight has shown us though that it
*was* and *is* the right choice.  I think Ron and Kris and others have
been very happy with Lua.

Many people don't know this, but Lua is the embedded language in World
of War Craft and in Second Life.

People have obviously done great things with those games.  With the
work of Patrick and others Nmap NSE has added quite a few useful
Lua bindings for Nmap internals.

When you know another language by heart like Perl or Python you can't
help but wish everything were in that language ;-)  I think everyone
who has used NSE will tell you it is worth learning something new
though.

Brandon

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