# ninfo

**Repository Path**: mirrors_esnet/ninfo

## Basic Information

- **Project Name**: ninfo
- **Description**: Plugin based information gathering library
- **Primary Language**: Unknown
- **License**: Not specified
- **Default Branch**: master
- **Homepage**: None
- **GVP Project**: No

## Statistics

- **Stars**: 0
- **Forks**: 0
- **Created**: 2020-09-24
- **Last Updated**: 2026-03-15

## Categories & Tags

**Categories**: Uncategorized

**Tags**: None

## README

<p align="center"><img src="meme.jpeg"/></p>

nInfo
=====

nInfo is a library, CLI tool, and web interface (and lots of plugins) for gathering information on any of the following:

 * IP Address (v4 or v6)
 * CIDR Block (v4 or v6)
 * MAC Address
 * Hostname
 * Username
 * Hashes (as in md5/sha1 etc)

It consists of multiple plugin classes that implement a `get_info` function.
The classes contain metadata for the type of arguments they accept, and if
they are relevant for internal and or external hosts.

The CLI tool
============

Listing plugins
---------------

    $ ninfo -l
    Name                 Title                Description
    cif                  CIF                  Collective Intelligence Framework
    cymruwhois           Cymru Whois          Cymru Whois lookup
    geoip                GeoIP                GeoIP
    google_safebrowsing  Google Safe Browsing Google Safe Browsing check
    ....

Getting information
-------------------

Silly example, run two plugins against two addreses:

    $ ninfo -p geoip -p cymruwhois 8.8.8.8 4.2.2.2
    === 8.8.8.8 === 
    *** Cymru Whois (Cymru Whois lookup) ***
    15169 US 8.8.8.0/24 GOOGLE - Google Inc.

    *** GeoIP (GeoIP) ***
    US - United States

    === 4.2.2.2 === 
    *** Cymru Whois (Cymru Whois lookup) ***
    3356 US 4.0.0.0/9 LEVEL3 Level 3 Communications

    *** GeoIP (GeoIP) ***
    US - United States

The Library
===========

    >>> from ninfo import Ninfo
    >>> n=Ninfo()
    >>> n.get_info("cymruwhois", "8.8.8.8")
    {'cc': 'US', 'ip': '8.8.8.8', 'prefix': '8.8.8.0/24', 'asn': '15169', 'owner': 'GOOGLE - Google Inc.'}
    >>> print n.get_info_text("geoip", "8.8.8.8")
    US - United States

The Web Interface
=================

See https://github.com/justinazoff/ninfo_web or https://github.com/justinazoff/django-ninfo

Writing A plugin
----------------

Here's a plugin:

```python
from ninfo import PluginBase

class fun_plugin(PluginBase):
    """This plugin returns something cool!"""

    name        =  'fun'
    title       =  'Fun Plugin'
    description =  'Happy Fun time'
    cache_timeout   =  60*2
    types   =    ['ip','hostname']

    #def setup(self):
    #    #libraries should be lazy imported in setup. This is only called once.
    #    import mybackendlibrary
    #    self.client = mybackendlibrary.Client()

    def get_info(self, arg):
        #should always return a dictionary, even for a single value
        #multiple values are the norm, and allow values to be added without breakage
        result = 'hello %s' % arg
        return { "result": result }

plugin_class = fun_plugin
```

If installed, this plugin can be run as follows:

    >>> from ninfo import Ninfo
    >>> p = Ninfo()
    >>> print p.get_info('fun', 'justin.rules')
    {'result': 'hello justin.rules'}

I had to include a '.' in the argument, because without it, ninfo will assume
the argument is a 'user' and not an 'ip' or a 'hostname', and it will not run
the plugin.

Plugins are installed and located using entry_points. If the above class was in a python module
called fun_plugin, it would be installed by the following in setup.py:

```python
...
py_modules = [ "fun_plugin"],
entry_points = {
    'ninfo.plugin': [
        'fun = fun_plugin',
    ]
...
```

Plugin Metadata
---------------

* Strings
 * \_\_doc\_\_ - The python docstring of the class is used as the long_description for the plugin.
 * name - The name of the plugin. Can be anything, but keeping it limited to [a-z_] is recommended.
 * title - The title of the plugin. This is what is actually displayed to the user.
 * description - Short description of the plugin.
* cache_timeout - timeout in seconds that this plugin should be cached in
      memcache, and the max-age parameter sent by the web interface.
* types - A list of one or more of 'mac', 'ip4', 'ip6', 'cidr4', 'cidr6', 'hostname', 'username'.
* local - if False, this plugin will not be run against local hosts.
* remote - if False, this plugin will not be run against remote hosts.

Cloned Plugins
--------------

Multiple instances of a plugin can be created by adding another section in the
configuration file and optionally overriding the plugin metadata:

    [plugin:geoip]
    path = GeoIP.dat

    [plugin:geoipcity]
    clone = geoip
    path = GeoIPCity.dat
    title = City GeoIP
    description = City Level GeoIP

See Also
--------

* [ninfo_web](https://github.com/JustinAzoff/ninfo_web) - basic web interface
* [django-ninfo](https://github.com/JustinAzoff/django-ninfo) - ninfo integrated with django
* [ninfo-plugin-template](https://github.com/JustinAzoff/ninfo-plugin-template) - paster template for creating plugins
* [ninfo-client](https://github.com/JustinAzoff/ninfo-client) - REST client for ninfo_web or django-ninfo
* [Search github for ninfo-plugin](https://github.com/search?p=1&q=ninfo-plugins&ref=searchresults&type=Repositories) - more plugins