Passive operating system identification with p0f
The p0f tool is a comprehensive tool that was developed for the purpose of identifying remote operating systems. This tool is different from the other tools discussed here because it is built to perform operating system identification passively and without directly interacting with the target system. This recipe will demonstrate how to use the p0f
command to perform passive operating system identification.
Getting ready
To use the p0f
command to perform operating system identification, you will need to have a remote system that is running network services. In the examples provided, an instance of Metasploitable2 is used to perform this task. For more information on setting up Metasploitable2, refer to the Installing Metasploitable2 recipe in Chapter 1, Getting Started.
How to do it…
The following steps will help you to perform passive OS identification using the p0f
command:
- If you execute the
p0f
command directly from the command line without...