RE: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL)

["Arun Vishwanathan" <arun.vishwanathan () nevisnetworks com>]

I agree with your comments totally. I prefer either TCL/Python. 

 

My main point is that we use a language which is already widely used by
most people. Using a new language will delay the adoption in my opinion.


 

Regards,

Arun

 

-----Original Message-----
From: paulrigor () gmail com [mailto:paulrigor () gmail com] On Behalf Of Paul
Rigor
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 12:07 PM
To: Arun Vishwanathan
Cc: Fyodor; nmap-dev () insecure org
Subject: Re: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL)

 

I say python.  You can even wrap nmap and use it a module.  Have python
handle the application logic and scripting language parser adn have it
invoke appropriate NMAP functionality.  Python has great string
processing facilities as well as an XML parser.  It's also *very*
portable, true OOP, good unit test, debugging might prove cumbersome
though.  Oh, also you can freeze python scripts/programs and have them
run as executables (which of course rely on  shared python libraries and
an nmap shared lib, is there already such a thing).  If you've ever used
python, you will also definitely cut development. 

Paul

On 5/22/06, Arun Vishwanathan <arun.vishwanathan () nevisnetworks com>
wrote: 

Forgot to add a point.

- TCL will cut the development time drastically and help in rolling out 
this feature faster.

Regards,
Arun


-----Original Message-----
From: nmap-dev-bounces () insecure org
[mailto: nmap-dev-bounces () insecure org
<mailto:nmap-dev-bounces () insecure org> ] On Behalf Of Arun Vishwanathan
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 11:36 AM
To: Fyodor; nmap-dev () insecure org
Subject: RE: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL) 

Fyodor,

Why can't we use TCL as the scripting language?

I say TCL because of the following reasons
- TCL is easily extensible by writing custom commands in C and exporting
them as TCL functions. 
- TCL provides a very decent syntax and provides all common programming
constructs in addition to in-built commands for string handling/regex
etc.
- TCL is used by most networking companies and hence would be easy for 
companies to integrate NMAP commands into their existing frameworks thus
making nmap an integral part of their test infrastructure (like we do at
Nevis Networks :)).
- TCL integrates easily with expect and which can be used to automate 
remote scanning. You could potentially launch nmaps from multiple hosts
all controlled from a single controller script written using
send/expect. This may make sense for scanning larger networks where an
admin can logically divide his network and scan parallely. 

My 2 cents. Hope the above makes sense.

Regards,
Arun

-----Original Message-----
From: nmap-dev-bounces () insecure org
[mailto: nmap-dev-bounces () insecure org
<mailto:nmap-dev-bounces () insecure org> ] On Behalf Of Fyodor
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 6:50 AM
To: nmap-dev () insecure org
Subject: Nmap Attack Scripting Language (NASL)

One of the Google SoC projects that I'm most excited about is adding a
scripting engine to Nmap.  Don't worry Renaud, we won't really call it
NASL :).  And this doesn't mean Nmap is becoming a vulnerability
scanner.  Scripts can be used for all sorts of things.  For example, 
KX's recent suggestion of looking up AS numbers and whois data.  Or
you could write a custom script to query your own proprietary
applications on your network.  Or vulnerability detection.  Or maybe
check for open proxies.  There are tons of options. 

So I just wrote up a requirements doc for the project:

http://www.insecure.org/nmap/SoC/Scripting.html

Boy, SoC is a great program but it sure keeps me writing a lot of long 
text files :).  The good news is that the final student selection
should be announced within the next couple days and then we'll move
toward writing code.  But doing the initial design properly is
obviously critical.  So do reply if you have suggestions. 

For what it is worth, we're currently looking at LUA as the embedded
scripting language of choice.  Anyone have experience in this area?

Cheers,
-F



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