Re: Bootable Nmap virtual network CD

[|reduced|minus|none| <p00p () instable net>]

Sorry this is so long.

Fyodor wrote:
> Normally I consider including CDs with books to be a waste of plastic,
> but I think the suggestion you guys have made for including Nmap and a
> virtual test network on an included bootable (Knoppix or whatever) CD
> is a fabulous idea!  Then they could just boot up and have Nmap
> installed and ready to go.  The test network could be somewhere
> obscure like 10.255.0.0/16 and could be used in many book examples.
> It would also have normal network connectivity so that they can scan
> their own network and Internet hosts as well.  A few notes.

I agree with all that, and I think that all book examples should be 
attemptable via the CD; this way, users can get a working (safe) demo of 
how Nmap works, and see it for themselves.  Perhaps they could also 
experiment on these sample hosts with different scanning options.

> o I don't think VMWare will work.  Obvious problems are that we can't
>   redistribute it, nor can many popular OS images be redistributed.
>   Those disk images are huge as well.  

Yes, VMWare is out, but perhaps it is a good model for what the CD would 
be trying to accomplish.  Perhaps the book could point corporate readers 
(and those with some money to spend) toward VMWare.

Honeyd is an excellent
>   solution, and could be combined with iptables rules for certain faux
>   hosts to demonstrate common configurations (deny-by-default,
>   deny-certain-ports, etc).  There could also be IPs bound to loopback
>   (w/o Honeyd) with various common daemons running (Apache, Sendmail,
>   pop servers, whatever).

All that sounds good.  What about chroot jails?  I don't know much about 
them, but from what I gather, some hosting companies run entire 
dedicated servers for their users that are simply chroot jails running 
on one master server.  Their users have root access to the jail and 
manage their own services/daemons.  This idea might be an interesting 
one; maybe we could do something like what Fyodor suggested in the last 
sentence there: actually run the services on some of the sample systems. 
 There could be a reference in the book explaining which of the sample 
hosts are actually running the services (which could perhaps actually be 
accessed, if it used a chroot method; such as viewing a web site on a 
sample host that is running Apache) and which are merely giving out banners.


> o These virtual hosts will never be quite as good as a real network to
>   play on, but I feel the benefits outweigh the cons.

For these purposes I believe they are a good idea, but it might be good 
to mention that indeed they are not as useful to learn from as a real 
network.

> As fun as setting this up sounds, I am going to focus on writing for
> now.  If anyone wants to work on a proof-of-concept ISO, that would be
> great!  Otherwise I may be able to get to it after a few chapters are done.

I think that is probably the best thing you can do.  I believe the 
emphasis should be on the book's written content, rather than on the CD. 
 While I agree with the CD idea, I believe it should be secondary to 
the book.  This is especially so when software on the CD could likely 
become obsolete very quickly.  I think that the book's content is much 
less likely to do so.

Just some thoughts for you all.
--
p00p () instable net
AIM: l4m3n00b
MSN: l4m3n00b () hotmail com
http://www.instable.net
GnuPG Public Key: http://www.instable.net/pubkey.asc
Please forgive my English, I'm an American.
"The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason." - Wizard's 
Sixth Rule, "Faith of the Fallen" by Terry Goodkind

Attachment: _bin
Description: