guessnet-scan(8) guess network configuration data by looking at network traffic

SYNOPSIS

guessnet-scan [options] [ethernet_interface]

DESCRIPTION

Guessnet-scan tries to deduce network configuration data by watching network traffic at a given Ethernet interface.

After scanning network traffic for some time, guessnet-scan prints a configuration string suitable for inclusion in /etc/network/interfaces.

Note that guessnet-scan uses heuristics and wild guesses and that the resulting data is not guaranteed to be accurate. The program is intended to be used as a first try at getting network configuration data without bothering anyone.

OPTIONS

Options follow the usual GNU conventions,
--debug
Print debugging messages.
--help
Show a brief summary of commandline options.
--init-time=int
Time in seconds to wait for the interface to initialize when it is not found already up at program startup. Default: 3 seconds.
-t, --timeout=int
Time in seconds to watch for network traffic. Default: 5 seconds.
-v, --verbose
Operate verbosely.
--version
Show the version number of the program.

SCANNING REQUIREMENTS

To correctly identify all data of the local network, guessnet-scan needs to see traffic related to a host in the local network and to the local gateway, if any.

To be able to identify the network gateway, guessnet-scan also needs to see some traffic directed to the external network: you can help the detection by generating some outbound IP traffic during the scan, for example by browsing a web page (without proxy) or using telnet to open a connection to some remote host.

Note that if you are connected to a switch, guessnet-scan won't probably be able to work, since the switch will isolate it from the network traffic that the other machines are generating.

AUTHOR

Guessnet-scan was written by Enrico Zini <[email protected]>.