Nmap Development mailing list archives
Re: Patch to make --host_timeout more useful
From: Colin Phipps <cph () netcraft com>
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 10:36:46 +0000
On Tue, Jan 02, 2001 at 10:18:36PM -0800, Fyodor wrote:
On Mon, 18 Dec 2000, Colin Phipps wrote:For people who don't want to wait forever :-), the attached patch makes nmap print partial results from timed out scans.Thanks! That patch will certainly be useful for some users! However, I am not sure about whether it should be in the main distribution. There are a couple important reason that Nmap currently does not try to give results for scans that are aborted due to timeout: 1) User experience -- I am worried that partial results will give people a false sense of security.
Very good point. But --host_timeout is not the default; people delving that deep into nmap's options ought to have a clue what they are doing.
2) Limited benefit -- Even if we give partial results, they generally don't know what ports were finished being scanned and so they don't know wich ones are left to be tested.
True, it's advisable to disable the random port order with this option.
3) Programmer experience -- If I print the results, I need to make sure that all the relevant structures are consistant in every single place I bail out of a function due to timeout.
True, I didn't look too closely at whether it's safe to exit scans early. The patch appears quite stable here, anyway.
... So if this really helps some people/applications, speak now or forever hold your peace! Also note that for many scans, -v will give you partial info as it is discovered.
I tend to view "-v" as a debugging option; it doesn't support the range of output formats that the main output does, for instance. If I'm writing scripts which take nmap results as input (which I do), which is the better option; use -v and look for the "Added TCP port" lines, ignoring the "main" output; or use the patched --host_timeout so that I can use the "main" results complete with choice of formats? For automated scripts, the timeout is essential. -- Colin Phipps http://www.netcraft.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- For help using this (nmap-dev) mailing list, send a blank email to nmap-dev-help () insecure org . List run by ezmlm-idx (www.ezmlm.org).
Current thread:
- Re: Patch to make --host_timeout more useful Fyodor (Jan 02)
- Re: Patch to make --host_timeout more useful Colin Phipps (Jan 03)