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Is there anyway to ping a computer's IP and find out some basic information about it? Platform, OS, etc...

If so, how would that be done?

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Using nmap from MacPorts you can run the following command to attempt to identify the OS of a remote machine:

sudo nmap ipaddress -O

e.g.:

$ sudo nmap localhost -O

Starting Nmap 5.51 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2011-08-07 17:58 CEST
Nmap scan report for localhost (127.0.0.1)
Host is up (0.000085s latency).
Not shown: 989 closed ports
PORT     STATE SERVICE
22/tcp   open  ssh
80/tcp   open  http
88/tcp   open  kerberos-sec
139/tcp  open  netbios-ssn
445/tcp  open  microsoft-ds
515/tcp  open  printer
631/tcp  open  ipp
3689/tcp open  rendezvous
5900/tcp open  vnc
8888/tcp open  sun-answerbook
9091/tcp open  xmltec-xmlmail
Device type: general purpose
Running: Apple Mac OS X 10.5.X|10.6.X
OS details: Apple Mac OS X 10.5 - 10.6.3 (Leopard - Snow Leopard) (Darwin 9.0.0 - 10.3.0)
Network Distance: 0 hops

OS detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at http://nmap.org/submit/ .
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 8.80 seconds]
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  • And is there a way to include my root password in there so I don't need to enter it on the next line? sudo --password="applemac" nmap localhost -O kinda thing?
    – JShoe
    Aug 7, 2011 at 16:16
  • If you run this kind of command regularly, you can create a setuid binary that would run as root without asking for the root password. I'm not sure why you would want to do this, however.
    – Sören Kuklau
    Aug 7, 2011 at 19:15
  • A more secure way would be to edit /etc/sudoers and add an entry in the form username ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL. Setting the setuid bit allows any user on the system to have sudo access.
    – grantc
    Aug 8, 2011 at 12:36
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WakeOnLan is a GUI based app that can give some of this information. Additionally it scans the network and lists all devices. It doesn't have any success recognizing Linux based machines.

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  • That'd be wonderful, if I wasn't trying to make the same thing. :) I'm using these commands to write a GUI in python to show active devices, and if you want, get info. Unfortunately, getting people to install nmap and enter their root password is too much, this'll be just for me.
    – JShoe
    Aug 7, 2011 at 16:35
  • You can ship nmap with your GUI, and you can also ship it with a tool with setuid. It would then only have to prompt for the admin password once.
    – Sören Kuklau
    Aug 7, 2011 at 19:16

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