Chapter 1, Introduction to the Nmap Scripting Engine, covers the fundamentals of the Nmap Scripting Engine and its applications.

Chapter 2, Lua Fundamentals, describes the fundamentals of Lua programming.

Chapter 3, NSE Data Files, covers NSE databases and teaches you how to fine-tune them to optimize results.

Chapter 4, Exploring the Nmap Scripting Engine API and Libraries, explores the Nmap Scripting Engine API and usage of the most important NSE libraries.

Chapter 5, Enhancing Version Detection, explains the Nmap version detection engine and NSE version scripts.

Chapter 6, Developing Brute-force Password-auditing Scripts, describes the process of implementing the Brute class to create robust brute-force password-auditing scripts.

Chapter 7, Formatting the Script Output, covers the different output modes in Nmap and NSE.

Chapter 8, Working with Network Sockets and Binary Data, teaches you all the topics related to network I/O operations and handling binary data.

Chapter 9, Parallelism, introduces the concepts of parallelism and collaborative multitasking in Lua and the Nmap Scripting Engine.

Chapter 10, Vulnerability Detection and Exploitation, covers vulnerability exploitation with the Nmap Scripting Engine.

Appendix A, Scan Phases, explains the different phases of an Nmap scan.

Appendix B, NSE Script Template, covers the required fields and structure of an NSE script.

Appendix C, Script Categories, demonstrates the available NSE categories.

Appendix D, Nmap Options Mind Map, illustrates all the available options in Nmap using a mind map.

Appendix E, References, includes all the references of this book and links for additional reading.

You will need a recent copy of Nmap (6.x) to follow the examples of this book. Refer to Chapter 1, Introduction to the Nmap Scripting Engine, for installation instructions.

For Chapter 2, Lua Fundamentals, you might also need a Lua interpreter installed on your system.

This book is aimed at anyone looking to master the Nmap Scripting Engine and the art of developing NSE scripts. It is perfect for network administrators, information security professionals, and even Internet enthusiasts who are familiar with Nmap but know that they are missing out on some of the amazing features of the Nmap Scripting Engine. This book will give readers the ability not only to work with the Nmap Scripting Engine but also to extend the capabilities of Nmap by developing custom NSE scripts.

In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and explanations of their meanings.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "Go to the nmap directory that was just created by Subversion."

A block of code is set as follows:

Driver = {
  new = function(self, host, port, options)
    local o = {}
    setmetatable(o, self)
    self.__index = self
    o.options = options
    return o
  end

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

static const luaL_Reg libs[] = {
    {NSE_PCRELIBNAME, luaopen_pcrelib},
    {NSE_NMAPLIBNAME, luaopen_nmap},
    {NSE_BINLIBNAME, luaopen_binlib},
    {BITLIBNAME, luaopen_bit},
    {TESTLIBNAME, luaopen_test},
    {LFSLIBNAME, luaopen_lfs},
    {LPEGLIBNAME, luaopen_lpeg},
#ifdef HAVE_OPENSSL
    {OPENSSLLIBNAME, luaopen_openssl},
#endif
    {NULL, NULL}
  };

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

# $nmap --script brute --script-args brute.delay=3 <target>

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "If version detection is enabled, the table of results will contain the additional VERSION column."

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