Re: Minor zenmap feature

[ambarisha b <b.ambarisha () gmail com>]

My main idea is that everything has to function as it is working now
even if there are non xml files in any of the concerned
directories.Say , I just saved some scans (may be each was saved at a
different time) in the home directory and after a while I want to open
all the scans in the home directory.In this case I would unnecessarily
be alerted about all the other files and directories in my home
directory.Also considering the README case you pointed out,alerting
about the README file seems wrong.Why can't we just ignore all the
non-xml files when trying to load an entire scan directory because
that isn't strictly an "aggregation file format error" as the scan
aggregation is still intact in the directory.

The other thing that makes me think is whether we need to add a
functionality to recurse directories.For example, I organised all
scans of my campus network under "campus" directory.I performed a set
of scans on each of the up-hosts and put them in a folder with the
host's name as folder name.Then if we add the functionality to recurse
directories that would load up all the scans.Is this issue being
handled in a different way currently?

Cheers
Ambarisha

On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 5:50 AM, David Fifield <david () bamsoftware com> wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 03:37:12PM +0530, ambarisha b wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 10:22 PM, ambarisha b <b.ambarisha () gmail com> wrote:
> > > I noticed that Open Directory functionality when it tries to load a
> > > directory full of scans pops up alerts when it finds unsuitable
> > > files.It alerts about non xml files also.I thought it would be cooler,
> > > if we put a small check over there to try out only .xml files and
> > > alert if those xmls aren't nmap ones.What do you guys think?
> >
> > While you are at it, please do check this out also.A 2-line patch to
> > avoid testing and alerting about non xml files on "Open
> > Directory".Now, one need not have the nmap xmls in a separate
> > directory to open without error.
> >
> > Is there an option already to recurse the directory tree searching for
> > xml files?It could be useful when I have a huge list of directories,
> > each containing a few scans ,perhaps.
>
> When Dražen and I were designing this feature, we made it refuse to open
> a directory with non-scan files as a conscious design decision. We were
> looking for a way to save a bunch of scans as one unit (the "Save All
> Scans to Directory" feature), and instead of inventing a new file
> format, we decided to store them all in one directory. If there are
> other files in there, we treat it as if there was an error in the
> "aggregation file format" and fail. For the same reason, Zenmap will
> refuse to "Save All Scans to Directory" if there are files there it
> doesn't expect.
>
> But I can see the value of allowing a README or similar file in a
> directory that otherwise stores scans. Also in building a directory of
> scans outside of Zenmap and then opening them in Zenmap.
>
> What is your use case for this feature? How was the directory created,
> how did you fill it with scan files, and what are the non-scan files?
>
> David Fifield
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