Abstract

Sometimes, in our jobs, we need to perform some quick tasks and get the results fast with only more relevant information. In these cases, although we can do advanced searches in search engines, we prefer the quick ones. Analogously speaking, we are going to talk about the quick searches. The Umit Project is a great graphical interface to NMAP – Network Mapper, which bring us all information we can get with the command line on a nice and complete interface. So, what can we do to improve it? We can help the network administrators by developing a “small version” of Umit to perform tasks of their jobs quick. In this small version the users could make some scans and get only relevant information about it. That information would be customizable. The goal of this project is develop a “smaller Umit”, called Quick Scan that starts very fast and lightly, in which the user could make some scans with a friendly interface. The results would come back so quickly that the user wouldn't feel the time difference between the command line and the graphical interface. And then they have the option of making some scans with NMAP as fast as command line: Umit.

Project

Introduction

The Umit Project brings a great functionality to advanced users and newbies: it make some NMAP scans so easily and get the results in a friendly interface. In this project our goal is to develop a “complement” of Umit, called Quick Scan. The Quick Scan would be a small version of complete Umit which that we can make quickly scans and get only the relevant information that we decide.

Inspiration

When I read the idea “Quick scan” on Umit's website, I decided to start tests with Umit. In the long run, I understood the reason of the idea. Then, I thought: “what a great idea! I want to do it!”. That's how I got some inspiration to construct this project. I read some parts of Umit's code and I was excited: it's Python! This answer ended all my doubts. And here am I, very interested and motivated to work to Umit Project in Google Summer of Code.

The application

The Quick Scan will be designed based on Umit's architecture and concept, following the i18n standards. It will be portable to other OS that Umit operate: Unix like (including GNU/Linux), Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. I like to use the usability standards in my projects, so this will not be different. I like to use some ideas from Dix and Nielsen. My plan is to take the useful ideas of them to this project and make it as usual as possible. To codify, I will use Python and PyGTK, follow the Umit's standards. So, the application will be divided in 2 levels:

Level 1

The level 1 will have 2 basic fields:

• The Target input
• Profile Selection

And also a button to start the scan.

Here is a initial prototype of the QuickScan:

When the user fill the fields and press “Scan”, the Quick Scan will run some NMAP commands. These commands will have the most relevant parameters for a basic scan like the actual options that exists in Profile. The output of this scan will be displayed in the level 2, that will only be displayed if you make a scan. Note that the Quick Scan screen is quite similar to the Umit's screen purposely, so that when the user run the Quick Scan, they will already be familiar to it.

Level 2

In the 2nd level we'll get the requested information in level 1. A new part of the window will be displayed in lower part of level 1 window. In this window we will have the information requested, filtered by relevance, that could:

1. Be the default standards

2. Be defined by the user in Profile Editor

In the lower part of the window, we will have a button to open the complete Umit with the scan result without running a new scan, using a temporary xml file that will content the scan result (like when we save the scan result). When the Umit is requested, it will open fast because it's preloaded. We can put a button to print this output, export to file, or open a future module Reports. It's a good idea, isn't it?

How will it run fast?

The Umit and Quick Scan will be loaded when OS starts. But there is more! We can put a try icon of Quick Scan and it will always be loaded. The user clicks and Quick Scan window launches very fast. When it's closed, the process comes to the background but it is still loaded. This is one more thing that will be configured in the Profile Editor. I believe there are many users that don't like this option. But, we have a good layer of network administrators that will love this function. To open Umit and Quick Scan quickly, we will use keystrokes. In the initial idea, the keystrokes depend on the operating system. So, we put a condition in the code that will responsible for it. I believe it will be very useful for the users and make their life easy.

Check the Time Line of the project.

Biography

I am an 21 year old under-grad student of Computer Science at Centro Universitário Nove de Julho, from São Paulo, Brazil. I am in 2nd grade. Nowadays, I work with programming to satellite maps, design of software for GPS and localization tools. Nowadays, I work with intranet and extranet development, using Zope and Plone. I have already worked with Zope/Plone intranet on intranet development, PHP/MySQL and a little bit of Java. This would be my first real involvement into open source development. Before that, I worked on translation in Ubuntu Linux Project, testing packages and helping other users in technologies that I know like python-brasil, zope-pt and ubuntu-br mailing lists. In São Paulo, I participated in the GruPy?-SP and I've already been monitor in my university of the logic programming and web development class. I like to participate in conferences, forums and meetings of users, mainly related to free software.