Monthly Archives: April 2019

Using nmap to scan network for devices

From time to time you might need to scan your network for router or device ip addresses. This can be easily done with nmap.

sudo apt-get install -nmap -y

Once you are done installing, you can run something like this:

nmap -sn 11.1.1.0/24

Replace 11.1.1 with the details of your actual ip. Keep the ending similar to 0/24 – you will want to scan the entire address range.

Nmap will now print something like this:

Starting Nmap 7.40 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2019-03-03 12:40 UTC
Nmap scan report for xxx (xxx.xxx.x.xxx)
Host is up (0.0035s latency).
Nmap scan report for something.localdomain (xxx.xxx.x.xxx)
…
Nmap done: xxx IP addresses (x hosts up) scanned in x.xx seconds

The output, similar to the above, should get you started on the road of discovering your devices. Note. Eventhough nmap is a poweful tool it will only tell you the address of your router/device where other devices on your network connect to. If you need more information you might use something like Wireshark. Currently, you would need to install Wireshark from source code – if you are using Linux.

Openbox and gnome-control-center

As I am trying new ideas for PostX GNU/Linux 0.6, I decided to see how is gnome-control-center working in Debian Buster. Being an Openbox user, I encountered some issues. Documenting them below in hopes that they can help others.

First time launching gnome-control-center from terminal:

gnome-control-center:24141): dbind-WARNING **: 16:23:03.199: Error retrieving accessibility bus address: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.a11y.Bus was not provided by any .service files
**
ERROR:../shell/cc-shell-model.c:458:cc_shell_model_set_panel_visibility: assertion failed: (valid)
Keskeytetty

Now, lets install one package that is needed:

sudo apt-get install at-spi2-core

If I run gnome-control-center again I get this:

ERROR:../shell/cc-shell-model.c:458:cc_shell_model_set_panel_visibility: assertion failed: (valid)
Keskeytetty

Previously this solution used to work – but it is no longer valid on its own. Doing it anyway just to make sure.

sudo rm -r .local .cache

And finally, exporting GNOME as environment variable. After this: gnome-control-center command should work as expected.

export XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=GNOME

I did not go further on my tests this time. I discovered that gnome-control-center integation to Openbox would require some more work. Still, I might integrate gnome-control-center more fully to PostX Gnu/Linux 0.6.