Re: to much info in error message?

[David Fifield <david () bamsoftware com>]

On Fri, Mar 01, 2013 at 11:59:15AM +0000, Robin Wood wrote:
> I've just tried to scan a host which doesn't resolve and got the following
> error message:
>
> Failed to resolve given hostname/IP: wreijijsdf.com.  Note that you can't
> use '/mask' AND '1-4,7,100-' style IP ranges. If the machine only has an
> IPv6 address, add the Nmap -6 flag to scan that.
>
> Is the second part of that message necessary as it doesn't seem relevant to
> the actual problem, that the host I've specified doesn't resolve.

It is relevant if the name you are trying to resolve only has an AAAA
record (IPv6) and not an A record (IPv4). -6 is what you want in that
case. For example,

$ ./nmap -sn ipv6.google.com
Failed to resolve given hostname/IP: ipv6.google.com.  Note that you can't use '/mask' AND '1-4,7,100-' style IP 
ranges. If the machine only has an IPv6 address, add the Nmap -6 flag to scan that.
WARNING: No targets were specified, so 0 hosts scanned.
Nmap done: 0 IP addresses (0 hosts up) scanned in 0.04 seconds

$ ./nmap -6 -sn ipv6.google.com
Nmap scan report for ipv6.google.com (2001:4860:4001:803::1012)
Host is up (0.019s latency).
rDNS record for 2001:4860:4001:803::1012: nuq04s09-in-x12.1e100.net
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.07 seconds

But anyway, the message has changed in latest SVN to just say "failed to
resolve."

David Fifield
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