scan used IP's

[ronin1967]

I am looking for software that will scan all the used IP addresses on my network. Now wait, here is the catch. Most of the software out there does an excellent job, however it doesn't seem to show any of the network printers(which are assigned static IP addresses). The software I am looking for would have to show ALL used IP addresses not just PC's.

Anyone?

[ucfswimmer]

well the only 2 ways i know of, of detecting what is on a network is to either ping it or attempt a connection on a listening port...most ip scanner utilities first send out an icmp ping which most pcs will respond to, but for security reasons your printers are probably not responding to. regardless in order to connect to these printers over the network, they need to be listening for connections to a certain port, so you could combine an icmp ping sweep on the network to detect all PCs and then follow-up with a port-scan to the particular port(s) your printer(s) listen on.

additionally you could try using a program called NMAP (for win32 or *nix) which has some special additional ways of detecting hosts on a network, however i do not know how well it would fare against a printer. You can find nmap here: www.insecure.org/nmap

Hope that helps.

~jeff~

[XWRed1]

nmap -sP 192.168.0.0/24

[ronin1967]

I tried to download NMap, the file downloaded ok, but when I extracted it something was corrupt. I will try another source.

[jajmon]

If you use a ping method, how do you plan to account for devices that aren't turned on for whatever reason?

I use our dns/dhcp database as reference. It will show static and dhcp hosts that have an address assigned, but not necessarilly pingable, because they may be turned of.

[XWRed1]

If they aren't even turned on, they might as well not exist on the network.

[jajmon]

Originally posted by XWRed1
If they aren't even turned on, they might as well not exist on the network.


Powered off for maintenance (host,printer,com device etc)or a user turns off their pc everyday before going home, etc

[ucfswimmer]

but that wont matter..if it's off then it isnt using an ip address on the network, which is what he wants to detect..he didnt say anything about keeping a global log of used ip address, but rather used ip addresses on the network..which means a device that is on and has an ip address..if it's off, it doesnt have an ip address, even if it would normally have a static one assigned.

~jeff~

[jajmon]

Ronin1967,
What are you actually looking for

a> finding all used (active) ip addresses at any one time

or

b> mapping out your network and identifying 'used' (active) addresses as they pertain to a pc, printer, router, etc?

If the answer is 'b' , I played around with a product, some years ago, called unicenter-tg that came free with all of our servers It seemed 'ok' but it really pegged the cpu when running a discovery.

At my work, we had alot of HP servers, intel based as well as risc(unix) based servers. We used HP-openview for a while as a manegment tool . It would draw a map of the network and report on anything your heart desired. It was found to be too cumbersome/expensive, so other tools were put into place.

[ronin1967]

I have a client that has everything configured with static IP's(of course he should be using DHCP, but no matter).

Anyway in order to add anything to the network we need to assign it an IP. Normally I just ping the IP address I want to use, if I get no response I use it. Of course you can see the obvious peril. So I was thinking, get the client to turn on all PC and run a IP scan, problem is none of the software detects printers.

[XWRed1]

You could arp for all the addresses. If there is anything there you should get a response.

The -P0 option with nmap should work, it tells it to scan without using icmp pings. Might try `nmap -P0 192.168.0.0/24`, or whatever your range is. I'd tell you how well it works, but it takes ALOT longer without icmp pings and I can't make myself wait that long for a forum post.

I'll let it grind on my lan and see what happens.

[TwistedAnimator]

You should check out Look@LAN. It is a little over the top on the graphics and sounds, but it's good. I know it finds all the computers in my apartment building (and all their open ports), but I'm not sure about printers.