I am setting up port scanner for remote server in my application using Go. I am using DialTimeout function in Go net package to check whether a remote host port is opened or not. The result is fine with success case. But, if i/o timeout happens, I need to identify whether
The port is closed (No service is running) or
Port is blocked (Firewall filtered) or
Due to internet connectivity down in local system where the application is running.
Have tried nmap cli command, I can able to differentiate those failure 3 cases exactly.
nmap command tried: nmap -sA -p port_number host_ip
I found a Go 3rd party libray to use nmap.
But, I don't want to use nmap in my application. Are there any other alternatives in Go to exactly differentiate those 3 cases?
In the simple world
Lets assume you want to scan a Linux system.
If you get an ICMP message type 3 code 3, the firewall explicitly told you:
Hi, I am the firewall of your target host. The host is running. I hereby inform you that you (potentially amongst others) can not access this port. So now that you know you should quit your connection attempts. However, I won't tell you wether it is because there is no service running behind it (in which case my response is simply a courtesy) or because I was told to deny you access. Goodbye!
The port is closed if you do not get above answer and can not make a connection. I hence strongly advice to use context.WithTimeout to make a connection.
In the real world
However, this only applies if the admin of the target host did not change the ICMP message type to respond with - or chose just to drop any packets coming from sources which are not allowed to access the respective service. In the latter case, there is no way for you to know wether the port is closed or filtered.
All of the above only applies if we are talking of an iptables based firewall on the target system with default settings.
Now assume something which is by far more likely: A border firewall plus a local firewall. The border firewall might send other ICMP messages (or, again, simply drop your packages). Those rules apply additionally to the rules of the local firewall. So it is a misconception that you are actually scanning a host. It is more accurate to say that you scan the services reachable via a specific IP.
EDIT
Why would one send an ICMP message explicitly rejecting connection attempts?
There are various reasons to come to that decision. There is a good answer on serverfault.com
I am trying to find somw Windows based tools that can help me validate TCP and UDP connection on remote machines.
My Problem (just one use case):
At work, I manage many clustered servers that I run load tests against. In order to get a rich test, I use Jmeter-Plugins which provides a Server agent that opens a TCP socket on port 4444 on a target remote machine: http://code.google.com/p/jmeter-plugins/wiki/PerfMonAgent
There are many times when I setup a new load test farm, that either the network, or the server configuration, or the ServerAgent itself can have issues and thus not allowing a Load test client to access that TCP connection.
The issue I have is that I dont know what part of the system is broken.
What I think I need:
I would like to know how I can open a TCP (not HTTP with cUrl), connection to a remote server to validate that the network allows the connection, as well as the Server firewall allows the given TCP connection to be accessed remotely.
What I have looked:
These are some of the tools I have looked at so far:
Nmap http://nmap.org
Ncat http://sourceforge.net/projects/nmap-ncat/
TCP/IP Builder http://www.drk.com.ar
Zenmap 6.01 and nmap might do the job I want, but some machines where not accessible to Zenmap when I know 100% that the server was accessible via HTTP, so that was strange.
I have looked at many tools and either they:
Dont allow remote connections
Dont seem to want to connect to a TCP socket
Or I dont understand the tools to accomplish the validation I stated above.
I would greatly appreciate all comment and suggestions to help with this re-occurring problem I face.
Mick,
Firebind.com can do what you'd like to do. Firebind is an Internet based server that can listen on any of the 65535 UDP or TCP ports. It uses a java based client to send traffic to and from the server from your machine.
Carl
www.firebind.com
If I create a c++ server/client application, the port I used to communicate does it need to be open on the router of the server and client machine
Or what other approach could I take? the client computer needs to receive information from the server but I am not able to have any ports opened because it is on a school network....
[edit]
Hmm My setup is a php page running on a server say when I press hello, the server makes a ssh connection through php and sends shell commands to the machine. The server is running off of a school server which I do have ssh access to and run all my things from there. The client computer will be my pc running off of the school wifi which is not connected to the server. The server will try to make a ssh connection to the public ip of my computer running off of the school wifi(no ports open/can ssh out but no ssh in). Will these methods you mention make this possible, in particular the connect.c since I can't run putty off of the server, and the connect.c I could call from the php.
The choice of language is highly irrelevant here.
There don't need to be ports 'open' on any router, unless your traffic must pass through it. On normal peer hosts in the same network (or subnet) there would hardly be any firewall policy, not even in schools.
Technically it is possible for the switch to block peer-2-peer traffic (meaning traffic not destined to the outgoing gateway), but that is not very usual.
Of course, if the school doesn't allow outbound (WAN) traffic on most ports, tough luck, and they're absolutely right :)
You can look at
ssh (with tunnels -L, -D and -R options, perhaps -o GatewayPorts on)
stunnel
connect.c
http-tunnel
All very readily googled
To establish a TCP/IP connection, only the server port needs to be accessible by the client. The connection is full-duplex, therefore data can flow from the client to the server and vice-versa.
If you are using UDP for your application, which is a connection-less protocol, what happens depends heavily on the firewall or router and whether it performs connection tracking for your service or not.
Unless you provide some additional information on your service and the network setup on both the client and the server side, we cannot provide more concrete information.
stupid problem. I get those from a client connecting to a server. Sadly, the setup is complicated making debugging complex - and we run out of options.
The environment:
*Client/Server system, both running on the same machine. The client is actually a service doing some database manipulation at specific times.
* The cnonection comes from C# going through OleDb to an EasySoft JDBC driver to a custom written JDBC server that then hosts logic in C++. Yeah, compelx - but the third party supplier decided to expose the extension mechanisms for their server through a JDBC interface. Not a lot can be done here ;)
The Symptom:
At (ir)regular intervals we get a "Address already in use: connect" told from the JDBC driver. They seem to come from one particular service we run.
Now, I did read all the stuff about port exhaustion. This is why we have a little tool running now that counts ports and their states every minute. Last time this happened, we had an astonishing 370 ports in use, with the count rising to about 900 AFTER the error. We aleady patched the registry (it is a windows machine) to allow more than the 5000 client ports standard, but even then, we are far far from that limit to start with.
Which is why I am asking here. Ayneone an ide what ELSE could cause this?
It is a Windows 2003 Server machine, 64 bit. The only other thing I can see that may cause it (but this functionality is supposedly disabled) is Symantec Endpoint Protection that is installed on the server - and being capable of actinc as a firewall, it could possibly intercept network traffic. I dont want to open a can of worms by pointing to Symantec prematurely (if pointing to Symantec can ever be seen as such). So, anyone an idea what else may be the cause?
Thanks
"Address already in use", aka WSAEADDRINUSE (10048), means that when the client socket prepared to connect to the server socket, it first tried to bind itself to a specific local IP/Port pair that was already in use by another socket, either an active one or one that has been closed but is still in the FD_WAIT state. This has nothing to do with the number of ports that are available.
I'm having the same issue on a Windows 2000 Server with a .Net application connecting to a SQL Server 7.0. There's like 10 servers with the same configuration and only one is showing this error several times a day. With a small test program I'm able to reproduce the error by just establishing a TCP connection on the SQL Server listening port. Running CurrPorts (http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/cports.html) shows there's still plenty of available ports in range 1024-5000.
I'm out of ideas and would like to know if you've found a solution since you've posted your question.
Edit : I finally found the solution : a worm was present on the server (WORM_DOWNAD.A) and exhausted local ports without being noticed.
I often run into problems where I can't get something to connect to something else. I usually forget to check something obvious. Can you help with:
A tip/technique for diagnosing a connection issue
The name of a tool or application that can help (and the situation in which it's useful)
I know the question is a little non-specific, but hopefully the answers can form a useful starting point for anybody who's stuck trying to get computers/programs talking to each other.
Please can you give one answer per answer so the best ones can be voted up.
Simple checks to run when debugging network problems:
Has each machine got an IP address, Go to command prompt and run ipconfig. Key things to check here are the interfaces and ensuring the appropriate ones have IP addresses.
Check both machines IP addresses are in the same range and subnet if you are running it on an internal or Virtual network.
Try pinging each machine from the other to see if they can communicate with each other. Note that some firewalls will block ping requests.
If Pinging fails then check to see if firewalls are active. If the communication is within a 'safe' internal network then try disabling the firewalls and re-pinging.
If the connections are over a wireless network then check signal strength.
If pinging fails and you are connecting through several networks then try running a tracert to see at which will may show you where on the network the connection is failing.
If you are able to ping but not connect then check firewall settings and network connection settings. Windows 2000+ has the capability of setting port an ip access on a connection properties.
Try drawing a network diagram of the connections to help in visualising the problem.
If you are connecting through routers, firewalls and loadbalancers then check that all devices are not tied to any specific ip addresses and that the IP address redirection (if in place) is correct. Also check any NAT logs to see if connections are being received and properly re-directed.
Wireshark
Latest versions of ProcMon
netstat
Wireshark www.wireshark.org
Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer for Unix and Windows.
Features:
Deep inspection of hundreds of protocols, with more being added all the time
Live capture and offline analysis
Standard three-pane packet browser
Multi-platform: Runs on Windows, Linux, OS X, Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and many others
Captured network data can be browsed via a GUI, or via the TTY-mode TShark utility
The most powerful display filters in the industry
Rich VoIP analysis
Read/write many different capture file formats: tcpdump (libpcap), Catapult DCT2000, Cisco Secure IDS iplog, Microsoft Network Monitor, Network General Sniffer® (compressed and uncompressed), Sniffer® Pro, and NetXray®, Network Instruments Observer, Novell LANalyzer, RADCOM WAN/LAN Analyzer, Shomiti/Finisar Surveyor, Tektronix K12xx, Visual Networks Visual UpTime, WildPackets EtherPeek/TokenPeek/AiroPeek, and many others
Capture files compressed with gzip can be decompressed on the fly
Live data can be read from Ethernet, IEEE 802.11, PPP/HDLC, ATM, Bluetooth, USB, Token Ring, Frame Relay, FDDI, and others (depending on your platfrom)
Decryption support for many protocols, including IPsec, ISAKMP, Kerberos, SNMPv3, SSL/TLS, WEP, and WPA/WPA2
Coloring rules can be applied to the packet list for quick, intuitive analysis
Output can be exported to XML, PostScript®, CSV, or plain text.
work the OSI model from the bottom up
Physical (Do you have a network adapter/connection)
Link layer (arp, ethernet port blocked by network team (I've seen this where locked down environments see two MAC addresses coming from one workstation port and shut down the port)
Network layer (ipconfig, tracert, ping,)
Do you have a network address (DHCP, fixed)
Are you on a proper subnet/have routing between subnets
Is something in the middle blocking you
firewalls, routing tables
When in doubt, check to see if the windows firewall is messing with your communications. 8 times out of 10, it's at fault.
Using tracert is a good start to see how far along the chain you are getting.
For virtual machines it's usally a good idea to make sure you have the loopback adapter set correctly in the Host os.
Most frequently used tool is the ping. It can be used both to test your connection and the availability of a target
Second tool is the tracert if you want to see where the packets get lost.
For more advanced debugging I use the following tools: nmap, wireshark, etc.
Windows has a netstat utility which is pretty similar to the Unix netstat and can do a number of different things that might help you solve network issues.
Random example:
netstat -r displays routing information
netstat /? for usage information
Since you said you're using 2 virtual machines I would hazard a guess that both machines are setup in a NAT configuration (rather than a unique network device) -- In the NAT configuration, neither machine would (typically) be able to ping the other.
If you're familiar with the command line, you can try the "netstat" command.
You can also try "arp -a" to list all the IP/MAC addresses known to your PC.
The "tracert [ip address]" command will show you how many gateways/routers your packets jump through on their way to their destination. (This is probably not helpful if both machines are on the same network, though.)
And don't forget to check your Windows firewall settings.
Otherwise, if you want to get down and dirty, you can try the packet sniffer known as Wireshark: http://www.wireshark.org/ (aka. Ethereal)
Pull the network cable out
If you can get some communications to a device (eg a ping), but can't get your program to talk to a service on the computer. Then, try pulling the network cable out and see if the ping stops. This will verify you're communicating with the computer you really think you are.
On windows i user PortQueryUI : http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=24009
DNS activity: Portable DNS Cache and Firewall;
General network activity: Wireshark, Network Monitor;
Windows utilities: ping, netstat, nslookup.
You need to be use the process of elimination, for example if you can ping the ip address but not the hostname then there's DNS issues. If you can ping the system but not connect to a share etc.
DNS out of sync
If you're using a virtual machine and you perform a roll-back on it, then it could become out of sync with the DNS (Domain name server). Try to remove and re-add the machine to the domain, or if you've got access to the DNS machine, then get it to flush its cache.