Zenmap:GUI for NMAP@Kali Linux

1.     Most of us would have heard of the pretty famous Nmap ("Network Mapper") ,a free and open source (license) utility for network discovery and security auditing.It uses raw IP packets in novel ways to determine what hosts are available on the network, what services those hosts are offering, what operating systems they are running, what type of packet filters/firewalls are in use, and dozens of other characteristics. Designed to rapidly scan large networks Nmap runs on all major computer operating systems.Official binary packages are available for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. In addition to the classic command-line Nmap executable, the Nmap suite includes an advanced GUI and results viewer (Zenmap), a flexible data transfer, redirection, and debugging tool (Ncat), a utility for comparing scan results (Ndiff), and a packet generation and response analysis tool (Nping).In this post the focus will be to introduce Zenmap...a kind of GUI for running NMAP commands which is otherwise terminal based.

2.   To open Zenmap, go to the Backtrack menu. Navigate to Information Mapping - DNS Analysis, and click Zenmap.

3.   Notice that under the Profile menu that there are several options to determine what type of scan you would like to run, as shown in the following screenshot:

4.    The first step is creating a new profile. A profile in Zenmap allows a Penetration Tester to create what type of scan to execute and what different options to include.Navigate to the Profile menu and select New Profile as shown in the following screenshot:

5.   When you select New Profile, the profile editor will launch. You will need to give your profile a descriptive name. For example, you can call the profile testscan as I have named here.Optionally, you can give the profile a description. During your course of using Zenmap you will probably create many profiles and make multiple scans.

6.    Zenmap is the best way to get output from Nmap scans. Zenmap offers a rich graphical user interface that displays scans that can be exported into different formats, such as text or Microsoft Excel.

Finding Maximum frame size on the Network : PING makes it easy

1.   We know how to get the IP address of any website...we simply need to ping it.For example if we need to know the IP address of a website ie www.somesite****.com...then we only need to ping it....like shown in the screen shot below :

2.   So we get the IP address of the web site at www.somesite****.com as *.*.*.*....But if we need to know the maximum frame size that this can handle...what's the way out ?...ping will be able to assist us here too...we need to add some switches to it...so the next command goes like :

ping www.somesite****.com -f -l 1500 and we get this as the output :

3.   The display Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set means that the frame is too large to be on the network and needs to be fragmented.Since the -f switch is used,the packet was not sent and the ping command returned with this error.

4.   Now instead of 1500...type the same command with the attrib as 1300 like ping www.somesite****.com -f -l 1300

5.   So here we have got a bracket of size ie the maximum packet size is more than 1300 and less then 1500 bytes...so keep trying with values between 1300 and 1500 till ur reach the exact breaking point wherein the message in the ping display changes...so here the border line at which the message changes is shown in the screen shots below :

6.   So for the given www.somesite****.com ,the maximum frame size on the machine network is 1472 bytes....

7.  If you wanna try this in your network,then the 1300-1500 set that I have used may be different...so first you need to figure out those boundaries yourself!!!!!

Power of PING

In our respective interactions with various networks accessible to us.....as administrators we keep pinging so many IPs for testing the connectivity at various times like ping 192.121.23.1 etc....and we get a response...but ping it self has so many switches that most of us hardly use......i came across a chart today that in a summarized form tells the switches of ping command with examples and a brief explanation.....sharing here with you...thanks http://www.activexperts.com

ping -c count	ping -c 10	Specify the number of echo requests to send.
Ping -d	ping -d	Set the SO_DEBUG option.
Ping -f	ping -f	Flood ping. Sends another echo request immediately after receiving a reply to the last one. Only the super-user can use this option.
Ping host	ping 121.4.3.2	Specify the host name (or IP address) of computer to ping
ping -i wait	ping -i 2	Wait time. The number of seconds to wait between each ping
ping -l preload	ping -l 4	Sends "preload" packets one after another.
Ping -n	ping -n	Numeric output, without host to symbolic name lookup.
Ping -p pattern	ping -p ff00	Ping Pattern. The example sends two bytes, one filled with ones, and one with zeros.
Ping -q	ping -q	Quiet output. Only summary lines at startup and completion
ping -r	ping -r	Direct Ping. Send to a host directly, without using routing tables. Returns an error if the host is not on a directly attached network.
Ping -R	Ping -R	Record Route. Turns on route recording for the Echo Request packets, and display the route buffer on returned packets (ignored by many routers).
ping -s PacketSize	ping -s 10	Sets the packet size in number of bytes, which will result in a total  packet size of PacketSize plus 8 extra bytes for the ICMP header
ping -v	ping -v	Verbose Output. Lists individual ICMP packets, as well     as Echo Responses

Testing ur Broad Band Speed : The ISP Promise

1.    As a customer you are promised so much from your ISP....and the most important thing an ISP promises a customer is fultu speed...they have various packages and plans to offer that revolve around offering various speeds.But how do u find out if the plan is actually provisioning the speed that u were promised.So there are ...in fact thousands of online tools to give and test your Internet broadband speed.One that I have been a regular follower is the speedtest.net available at http://www.speedtest.net/.

2.   A simple interface that takes less than a minute to get started and conclude with the result.I got the following result for my ISP...and that was as per the promise by ISP....so u can check urs too at the site : http://www.speedtest.net/