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Mastering the Nmap Scripting Engine

Mastering the Nmap Scripting Engine

By : Paulino Calderon
5 (1)
Buy this Book
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Mastering the Nmap Scripting Engine

Mastering the Nmap Scripting Engine

5 (1)
By: Paulino Calderon
Buy this Book

Overview of this book

If you want to learn to write your own scripts for the Nmap Scripting Engine, this is the book for you. It is perfect for network administrators, information security professionals, and even Internet enthusiasts who are familiar with Nmap.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
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Mastering the Nmap Scripting Engine
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Mastering the Nmap Scripting Engine
Credits
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Credits
About the Author
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About the Author
Acknowledgments
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Acknowledgments
About the Reviewers
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About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
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www.PacktPub.com
Preface
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Preface
Lock Free Chapter
1
Introduction to the Nmap Scripting Engine
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Introduction to the Nmap Scripting Engine
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Installing Nmap
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Running NSE scripts
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Script categories
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Scan phases and NSE
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Applications of NSE scripts
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Setting up a development environment
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Adding new scripts
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Summary
2
Lua Fundamentals
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Lua Fundamentals
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Quick notes about Lua
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Flow control structures
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Data types
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String handling
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Common data structures
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I/O operations
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Coroutines
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Metatables and metamethods
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Summary
3
NSE Data Files
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NSE Data Files
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Locating your data directory
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Data directory search order
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Username and password lists used in brute-force attacks
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Web application auditing data files
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DBMS-auditing data files
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Java Debug Wire Protocol data files
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Other NSE data files
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Other Nmap data files
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Summary
4
Exploring the Nmap Scripting Engine API and Libraries
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Exploring the Nmap Scripting Engine API and Libraries
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Understanding the structure of an NSE script
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Exploring environment variables
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Accessing the Nmap API
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The NSE registry
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Writing NSE libraries
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Exploring other popular NSE libraries
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Summary
5
Enhancing Version Detection
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Enhancing Version Detection
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Understanding version detection mode in NSE
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Writing your own version detection scripts
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Examples of version detection scripts
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Summary
6
Developing Brute-force Password-auditing Scripts
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Developing Brute-force Password-auditing Scripts
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Working with the brute NSE library
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Reading usernames and password lists with the unpwdb NSE library
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Managing user credentials found during scans
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Writing an NSE script to launch password-auditing attacks against the MikroTik RouterOS API
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Summary
7
Formatting the Script Output
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Formatting the Script Output
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Output formats and Nmap Scripting Engine
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XML structured output
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Printing verbosity messages
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Including debugging information
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The weakness of the grepable format
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NSE script output in the HTML report
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Summary
8
Working with Network Sockets and Binary Data
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Working with Network Sockets and Binary Data
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Working with NSE sockets
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Understanding advanced network I/O
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Manipulating raw packets
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Raw packet handling and NSE sockets
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Summary
9
Parallelism
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Parallelism
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Parallelism options in Nmap
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Parallelism mechanisms in Lua
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Parallelism mechanisms in NSE
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Consuming TCP connections with NSE
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Summary
10
Vulnerability Detection and Exploitation
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Vulnerability Detection and Exploitation
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Vulnerability scanning
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Reporting vulnerabilities
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Summary
1
Scan Phases
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Scan Phases
2
NSE Script Template
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NSE Script Template
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Other templates online
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Script Categories
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Script Categories
4
Nmap Options Mind Map
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Nmap Options Mind Map
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References
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References
6
Index
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Index

Setting up a development environment

To start developing NSE scripts, you don't need anything but a fresh copy of Nmap and your favorite text editor (vi, nano, gedit, and so on). However, you need to configure your text editor to use two space indents instead of tabs if you are planning on sending your contributions to the development mailing list.

There is a file named HACKING in your Nmap installation directory that you should read. It contains useful tips for people interested in NSE development. If you are working with vi, you might want to add the following to your .vimrc file. It contains a couple of additions to the rules listed in the HACKING file:

syntax enable
au BufRead,BufNewFile *.nse set filetype=lua
set nocindent
set expandtab
set softtabstop=2
set shiftwidth=2
set copyindent

Note

You can also download the file from my GitHub repository at https://github.com/cldrn/nmap-nse-scripts/blob/master/.vimrc.

Halcyon IDE

For those who love working with graphical environments, there is an unofficial IDE, named Halcyon IDE, created exclusively to develop NSE scripts. It is written in Java and allows developers to test and debug scripts within itself, providing features such as code completion and syntax highlighting. The following screenshot shows the Halcyon IDE:

The development of this IDE is still in its early stages so I recommend submitting any bugs you encounter. The official GitHub repository can be found at https://github.com/s4n7h0/Halcyon.

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