Re: [NSE] Microsoft SQL Server (MSSQL) library and scripts

[Fyodor <fyodor () insecure org>]

On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 03:57:37PM -0500, Ron wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:45:00 -0700 Fyodor <fyodor () insecure org> wrote:
>
> I'd be concerned about using --script-args to control the
> information, because I have a feeling a lot of people don't know about
> --script-args.

I agree with this.  That's why I suggested that the output might
contain a hint like:

 |_ Output condensed. For full details, run with: --script-args mssql-info=all

> As script integration into Zenmap improves, though, that'll be a
> smaller concern. It seems like it makes more sense to have multiple
> scripts rather giant scripts -- having smaller ones is more flexible.

A think a single script for querying a single service can be as
flexible as multiple scripts if the script-args are designed well.  I
think (in some cases) it can be easier for us to maintain, easier for
users to run, and provide more elegant output than multiple scripts.

In other cases, multiple script clearly win out.  So I'm not
suggesting we get overzealous about combining scripts, just that we
examine whether any of our scripts could be reasonably combined.  I
sent some examples in my last email.

> That being said, my smb-* scripts (as well as these mssql-* scripts
> and a lot of others) offload most of their work to nselibs
> anyways. The scripts themselves can almost be seen as the presentation
> layer. That doesn't really change anything, it's just a random
> thought.

Yeah, the multiple scripts would be a clear disaster if the protocol
parsing code had to be repeated in each.

> One advantage I can see to combining these scripts is re-use of
> connections. Rather than 10 scripts each making a connection to the
> service, only one script has to.

Good point.

> A disadvantage would be speed, since NSE's biggest strength is being
> able to parallelize itself.

True, though the separated scripts may have to each repeat the same
steps.  For example, I imagine that nfs-dirlist needs to repeat the
queries done by nfs-showmount, but it wouldn't need to if they were
combined.  And of course the separate scripts often each have to
authenticate when a combined script may only have to do that once.

Cheers,
-F
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