Mausezahn (German pronunciation: [ˈmaʊ̯zəˌʦaːn], German for "mouse tooth") is a fast network traffic generator written in C which allows the user to craft nearly every possible and "impossible" packet. Since version 0.31 Mausezahn is open source in terms of the GPLv2. Herbert Haas, the original developer of Mausezahn, died on 25 June 2011.[1] The project has been incorporated into the netsniff-ng toolkit, and continues to be developed there.[2]

Mausezahn
Original author(s)Herbert Haas
Developer(s)netsniff-ng developers
Stable release
0.40 / 7 July 2010; 14 years ago (2010-07-07)
Written inC
Operating systemLinux
LicenseGNU GPLv2
Websitenetsniff-ng.org

Typical applications of Mausezahn include:

  • Testing or stressing IP multicast networks
  • Penetration testing of firewalls and IDS
  • Finding weaknesses in network software or appliances
  • Creation of malformed packets to verify whether a system processes a given protocol correctly
  • Didactical demonstrations as lab utility

Mausezahn allows sending an arbitrary sequence of bytes directly out of the network interface card. An integrated packet builder provides a simple command line interface for more complicated packets. Since version 0.38, Mausezahn offers a multi-threaded mode[3] with Cisco-style command line interface.

Features

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As of version 0.38 Mausezahn supports the following features:[4]

Mausezahn only sends exactly the packet the user has specified. Therefore, it is rather less suited for vulnerability audits where additional algorithms are required to detect open ports behind a firewall and to automatically evade intrusion detection systems (IDS). However, a network administrator could implement audit routines via a script that utilizes Mausezahn for creating the actual packets.

Platforms

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Mausezahn currently runs only on Linux systems and there are no plans to port it to the Windows operating system.[5]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Personal Webpage of Herbert Haas". Archived from the original on 9 September 2017. Retrieved 31 March 2008.
  2. ^ "Webpage of Netsniff-NG with Mausezahn". Archived from the original on 8 September 2016. Retrieved 9 September 2012.
  3. ^ "Introduction to MOPS". Archived from the original on 10 February 2012. Retrieved 10 March 2010.
  4. ^ "Mausezahn User Guide". Archived from the original on 10 February 2012. Retrieved 31 March 2008.
  5. ^ Haas, Herbert. "perihel.at/sec/mz/mzguide.html#what-is-mausezahn". Archived from the original on 10 February 2012. Retrieved 20 November 2011.
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