STROBE 0.92(1)

NAME
strobe - Super optimised TCP port prober

SYNOPSIS
strobe [ -vVbetnSilfs ] [host1 ... [hostn]]

DESCRIPTION
strobe locates and describes all listening tcp ports on a (remote) host or on many hosts in a bandwidth utilisation maximising, and process resource minimising manner.

OPTIONS

-v  Verbose output.

-V  Verbose statistical output.

-s  Statistical information describing the average of all hosts probed is sent to stderr on completion.

-q  Quiet mode. Don't print non-fatal errors or the (c) message.

-d  Display only the first description in the port services entry file (Cf. -B).

-o file
    Direct output (but not any messages which can be affected by -q) to file.

-b number
    Beginning (starting) port number.

-e  Ending port number.

-t number
    Time after which a connection attempt to a completely unresponsive host/port is aborted.

-n number
    Use this number of sockets in paralell (defaults to 64). strobe attempts to figure out if number is greater than the quantity of available sockets at any point in time -- and if so, only use the amount found. On some UNIX implimentations such as Solaris, this appears not to work correctly and you may find yourself with unusual errors such as NO ROUTE TO HOST when you hit the socket ceiling. Remember that strobe probably isn't the only process on the system desiring a socket or two. Having strobe pilfer all the spare sockets away from inetd(8) and other daemons and clients isn't such a crash hot idea, unless you want to stop all new incoming and outgoing connections.

-S file
    Change the default port services description file to file. Note that if -S is not specified port services are loaded from one of strobe.services, /usr/local/lib/strobe.services, or /etc/services.

-i file
    Obtain hostnames to strobe from file rather than from the command line. Note that only the first white-space seperated word in each line of file is used, so one can feed in files such as /etc/hosts.

-l  Probe hosts linearly (sequentually) rather than in paralell. The actuall ports on each host are still checked in a paralell manner (with a paralellism of -n (defaults to 64)).

-f  Fast mode, probe only the tcp ports detailed in the port services file (see -S).

-a number
    Abort and skip to the next host after ports to number have been probed and still no connections have occurred.

EXAMPLE

strobe -n 120 -a 80 -i /etc/hosts -s -f -V -S services -o out

strobe all entries in /etc/hosts (identical ip addresses are skipped automagically) using 120 sockets in paralell, but only check the individual tcp ports mentioned in services. If we have probed up to port 80 on a host and have still not yet evidenced a connection, then skip that host. Display speed/time statistics for each host and for the totality of hosts to stderr. Place the regular output in out.

AUTHOR

Julian Assange
    		proff@suburbia.apana.org.au
    		proff@four.net
    		proff@gnu.ai.mit.edu

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) Julian Assange 1994, 1995, All rights reserved.

BUGS

No doubt.