Re: do we really need all these SNMP scripts?

[Patrik Karlsson <patrik () cqure net>]

On 4 feb 2011, at 21.53, mike bickett wrote:

> i was curious. i noticed there are now about 4 or 5 different scripts that each dump different info related to SNMP. 
> i was wondering why we needed to go this route. it seems to me a tool like SNMP-utils (snmpwalk to be specific) would 
> simply be able to accomodate  what everyone was trying to do with their scripts. why not have a complete NSE script 
> like an SNMP walk utility that dumps everything at once and walks all MIBS, instead of going through and making each 
> individual script for specific MIB info. you could simply set a verbosity range and have flags for each output you 
> wanted, instead of a bunch of scipts that really all do the same thing, just dumping different info. i hope this 
> doesn't sound too confusing and i hope it makes sense. it does to me anyway
>
> m|ke                                    
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Being the author of some of the SNMP scripts my thoughts have been to create a bunch of scripts that:
* each do a specific isolated task that is described in the scripts description
* do not require the user of the script to know a lot about the protocol, MIBS or other SNMP specific information
* produce output that can be easily parsed in order to extract data that can be used by other tools or scripts

The same applies for the ms-sql scripts which are also task oriented running different queries against the target 
database.
I guess that some of the SNMP scripts could be combined into a single one that would allow different script arguments 
to control the output eg:
snmp.filter={users} or snmp.filter={users,processes}

As I see it, simplicity is the key. It's important to be able to control the output in a easy comprehensible way and 
not require the user to know stuff like MIBS to run them.
I don't see the point of implementing a replacement of the snmpwalk or osql commands as NSE scripts as I would much 
rather use the original tools to perform their tasks.

//Patrik
--
Patrik Karlsson
http://www.cqure.net
http://www.twitter.com/nevdull77





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