NmapFE for OSX

NmapFE for OSX
version 0.80

What is NmapFE?
NmapFE is a Cocoa frontend for the popular Nmap port-scanning software written in Objective-C.

It can also be useful as a "teaching tool" since it shows the user how to construct a complex Nmap command line based on their choices, and provides background information (via tooltips) on what the different choices mean.

Screenshots

Download:
NmapFE for OSX version 0.80, .tgz, 371Kb, 9/16/03

How does this Nmap thingie work?
If you are familiar with Nmap, the Cocoa frontend should require no explanation. If you are not familiar with Nmap, I suggest reading through the documentation located at the website @ <http://insecure.org/nmap>.

Who developed Nmap?
Nmap is an open source tool maintained by Fyodor. The source for the command line program will compile cleanly on MacOSX/Darwin with no modifications for those who wish to do so. For more information see <http://insecure.org/nmap>.

Who developed NmapFE for OSX?
NmapFE is currently developed by Matthew Rothenberg. It is an open source project and contributors are encouraged to check out the source code via CVS.

NmapFE for OSX is released under the GPL and will always be free.

What's with the root access?
Nearly all of the useful options in Nmap require raw sockets. This requires root in OSX. The entire frontend is run as root rather than just the nmap subprocess for a number of technical reasons, most notably the fact that the current implementation of authenticated subtasks in Cocoa is pretty bad, and would result in you not being able to view the results of a scan in realtime, rather you would have to wait until the completion of the scan. When scanning very large subnets, this could be a very very long time.

Known bugs:
None at this time. (Send them in!)

Version history:

0.80:

Updated engine to nmap 3.45.
Now supports version scanning, which allows you to determine what service/version is actually running on a port. More information available in this paper regarding nmap's version scanning.

0.71:

Updated engine to nmap 3.27 (minor bugfixes)

0.70:

Updated engine to nmap 3.26, major new features include:
- IPv6 support,
- Faster scanning algorithms, especially against heavily firewalled targets.
- Huge update to the OS fingerprint database.
Other changes in NmapFE for OSX:
- Now supports logging to file, in all available formats.
- Expanded GUI, now with yet even more detailed tooltips, containing information taken directly from the man pages.
- Aggressive (-T4) timing is now the default, due to its optimizations in nmap 3.20 and the large amount of our users with fast connections. If you are on a modem, you probably want to use Normal timing instead.
- source port control toggle
- new ping types options
  - ICMP timestamp
  - netmask
- new scan types options
  - added RPC scan option (-sR)
  - added list scan option (-sL)
- randomize hosts toggle

0.6x:

Internal testing builds, no public release.

0.52:

For the you script kiddies and MCSEs, nmapfe now has much more extensive tooltips built in, allowing you to more easily use it without actually understanding what you are doing.
Recompiled with Jaguar DevTools (GCC 3.1), for greater code optimization and speed.
Changed the NSProgressIndicator in the ScanResults window to the new "spinning" style (only on OSX 10.2 and beyond).
Added a new application icon, courtesy of Emil Hedaya.
Updated bundle identifier signatures.
Included HTML version of manpage for nmap command line tool.

0.51:

First public beta release.

Ideas/bugs reports :
Send an email to mroth at cat dot nyu dot edu.

Or check out the SourceForge project page.