Re: Suggestion for Docs

[David Fifield <david () bamsoftware com>]

On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 10:21:47AM -0500, Michael Pattrick wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 6:16 AM, Rob Nicholls <robert () robnicholls co uk> wrote:
> > C:\nmap-svn\mswin32\Release>nmap www.robnicholls.co.uk -vv --unprivileged
> > Unable to start NPF service: ShellExecute returned 5.
> > Resorting to unprivileged (non-administrator) mode.
> >
> > I'm not sure if it's an easy fix, but is it possible to only prompt if the
> > user hasn't requested an unprivileged scan?
>
> IMO, line 231 of winfix.cc should be:
> o.have_pcap = o.have_pcap && o.isr00t && start_npf();

That sounds pretty good. Ideally we would check in advance whether any
raw Ethernet privileges will be required, and only start NPF (and
potentially interrupt the user with a dialog) if they will be. So, for
example, "nmap -sT" would not try to start NPF even without using the
--unprivileged option. But this at least provides a workaround for
people who can't get administrator access and don't want to be bothered
by a dialog every time they run the program.

It's not so bad, though. On Mac OS X, Zenmap will ask for your password
to become root, and will run in unprivileged mode if you click Cancel.

David Fifield
_______________________________________________
Sent through the nmap-dev mailing list
http://cgi.insecure.org/mailman/listinfo/nmap-dev
Archived at http://seclists.org/nmap-dev/