CODEWITHSUNDEEP
network-programmingipopenwrtsubnetdhcp
Krzysztof Papciak
Krzysztof Papciak

Reputation: 37

network sniffer - detect subnet mask in non-DHCP network

I'm writting a simple network sniffer that should be able to reconstruct network structure.

When an interface has set up a DHCP, I can easily read interface settings such as client IP address, subnet mask, DNS server etc. by catching a DHCP packet and analysing it.

When an interface has a static IP, I'm catching ARP Announcement packet to get static IP address and then ARP request from the gateway, to get geteway IP address. I'm also saving MAC addresses.

My problem is: how to get subnet mask from one or more static IPs in the network and the gateway address. Or by caching some packets. I didn't see packets that could have such informations. I also need DNS address, but it's less important.

The program should work in OpenWRT (C++).

Upvotes: 1

Views: 709

Answers (1)

Zac67
Zac67

Reputation: 2910

My problem is: how to get subnet mask from one or more static IPs in the network and the gateway address.

Possibly, you can't.

If the sniffed network uses DHCP then you can monitor the DHCP requests (which should be broadcast) for their subnet mask and router fields which mirror the server's offer.

Without DHCP, all you can do is take an educated guess. If your passive sniffer registers broadcasts from addresses 192.168.1.1 through 192.168.1.29, you know that the prefix length is at most /27. It could also be anything shorter, down to /16, with potential addresses being (currently) absent or silent. The prefix could be even short than /16 if the network admin is ignoring RFC 1918. With public addresses you're mostly on your own.

If you can scan actively you could send ARP requests and see which ones get answered - you'd also see nodes that don't originate any traffic/broadcasts.

The gateway is also just a guess. In a network with mostly Internet-bound traffic, the default gateway is most likely the one being ARPed most often. If the network traffic is mostly server-centric, ARP requests for their addresses outnumber the ones for any gateway.

Your sniffer is severely limited when it is just attached to a switch and listening to broadcast packets only. If the sniffer manages to listen to all traffic on the network (via a monitoring/mirroring switch port) then you can easily identify the gateway by its MAC address that packets for arbitrary IP addresses is sent to and vice versa.

As above, if you can actively send probe packets you could test the gateway(s) with packets that they accept (and hopefully forward) and which ones they reject.

Upvotes: 1

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