Re: Nmap XML HowTo

MS Excel 2003 does a pretty good job of parsing XML. I use it for nessus XML output, but haven't taken a stab at it for nmap. It's not open source, of course, and not command line but it's pretty handy...

I also stick to greppable because I use sed, awk and the like for writing small scripts...I hope this output will remain an option in future releases...

Egan
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld

-----Original Message-----
From: "Amit Kumar Saha" <amitsaha.in_at_gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 17:42:37
To:nmap-dev_at_insecure.org
Subject: Re: Nmap XML HowTo

Hi Fyodor,

> Hi Amit. I think the HOWTO is a great idea! And version 0.1 is a
> good start.

Thanks.

> Maybe instead of designing a command-line utility specifically for
> Nmap XML, you can demonstrate in your HOWTO how to use existing
> generic XML command-line utilities to parse Nmap output. I think many
> Nmap users (including me to some extent) fall back on Nmap grepable
> output because we grew up with command-line tools like awk, sed, cut,
> etc. for parsing plaintext. But parsing Nmap XML output using
> command-line XML tools to grab fields with XPath and the like can lead
> to command-lines which are shorter, easier to write, and a hundred
> times easier to read than a big string of piped sed/awk/etc.

I am currently playing with XMLStarlet, proposed by Dirk. I should be
able to put up something soon.

>
> But I do see the value in other sorts of special-purpose Nmap XML
> command-line utilities (and/or libraries). They could do things like
> take 2 Nmap XML output files and produce an XML file describing the
> differences. Tools like UMIT or PBNJ or simpler cron jobs could all
> share such a common utility/library.

This will be the next thing on my mind and lets us see what Adriano
says about its application to Umit.

Cheers,

-- 
Amit Kumar Saha
GSM :+91 9903140286
http://amitsaha.in.googlepages.com
_______________________________________________
Sent through the nmap-dev mailing list
http://cgi.insecure.org/mailman/listinfo/nmap-dev
Archived at http://SecLists.Org
_______________________________________________
Sent through the nmap-dev mailing list
http://cgi.insecure.org/mailman/listinfo/nmap-dev
Archived at http://SecLists.Org