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selfDHCPa stealth net autoconfiguration and analysis software |
What is selfDHCP
selfDHCP is a small network autoconfigure software. It is able to determine the main network configuration parameters by listening to the traffic and with appropriate heuristics. It can run as daemon or as application.
selfDHCP borns from a common need found working on networks: to configure a host in a transparent way. Though this task is greatly performed by many existing tools, such as DHCP, these tools need resources (DHCP servers) that could be not always present, or we would want not to use them. selfDCHP instead doesn't need any external resource, and can work stand-alone.
How does selfDHCP work
selfDHCP has two main ways of working. The first is to recognize a known network using profiles, so that it can be used to quickly configure a host on a small network without the need of setting up a DHCP server. The second is to analyze the network traffic and try to guess the main configuration parameters of an unknown network with heuristics.
selfDHCP has been written with aim of maximum discretion and stealthness: the great part of the job is done in passive mode, and even when traffic is generated, it's stealthness is mantained by spoofing an existing address.
selfDHCP limits
selfDHCP has for now some limits. First, it can only fully work on a non-swithced LAN (i.e. a LAN with a HUB, not a switch), and with ethernet/IPv4 protocols. From current 0.2 version anyway the active mode, combined with profiles, gives selfDHCP the ability to work even on swithced LANs, provided that some informations about the network are known a priori.
Second, it only works on GNU/Linux and other unix-like OSs. It has been tested on GNU/Linux and Solaris, both on x86 and SPARC architectures, and will soon be tested also under Cygwin, and on PPC and Alpha archs.
selfDHCP just passed from its alpha very first release to a more mature beta. Most of the features advertised should work correctly, but the path towards a stable release is still long. For this we strongly need beta testers.