Re: payload file prototype

[Jay Fink <jay.fink () gmail com>]

On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 1:32 PM, David Fifield <david () bamsoftware com> wrote:

> > So far so good, my question - if I follow your logic from the previous email is:
> >
> > Assuming I call the global payload something like AllPayloads *APL
> >
> > if AllPayloads exists
> >     find our payload and send back the payload itself
> > else
> >    load up all AllPayloads
> >           parse_nmap_payload_file
> >    find our payload and send it back the payload itself.
>
> You can do that, but I think better would be to parse the file at the
> beginning of the program, or at the top of ultra_scan, and then have
> your payload-getting function assume that the data structure is in
> place. The reason is that you don't want the on-demand parsing to happen
> right at the beginning of a scan, when timers are started, etc.

Agreed, load once at some point during init. Again my thinking was
off, in order to not touch any other part of nmap except the
get_udp_payload function - but that makes more sense and we can bail
earlier if there are any issues.

> See how service_scan does it, with a call to
> AllProbes::service_scan_init at the top of the function.

Yep - I have been using that file as a reference since you told me
where in it to look  and will continue to do so.

> That's a common computer scientist intinct, the urge to generalize fully
> right from the beginning. Finding the right level is an art. I like the
> file format we've created because it allows us to expand in the future,
> without requiring us to support everything we can think of now.

Thanks! and agreed - I mean if we get it right adding protocols later
should be a snap (at least for the lookup part :-)

> Keep it up! And don't get discouraged. Code review is hard for me and I
> usually come off sounding more critical than I intend.

You didn't come off critical at all - at least not to me :D

Thanks again,

 regards,
    j
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