Re: NASL2 reference manual

Michel Arboi wrote:
> Richard Moore <[email protected]> writes:
> 
> 
>>I notice that the progress function (scanner_status) is specific to
>>scanners and cannot be used by other types of plugin. How about making
>>it into a more generic function eg. plugin_status so that plugins
>>which can take a long time (such as the web mirroring script) can also
>>make use of it.
> 
> 
> Well, 1st, a scanner can say "I have done 55% of the port range", most
> plugins (like webmirror.nasl) cannot. 2nd, sooner or later, the
> "current" plugin name will not be displayed any more, because it is
> not "current" and there is no simple way it can be.
> 

I would have thought the webmirror plugin could do this because it knows 
how many documents it is allowed to fetch, I'm sure there are other 
possible plugins that this could be true of. Either way, it was just a 
suggestion.

> 
>>Another related idea is having a heartbeat function which would allow
>>a plugin to remind the system that it is alive. This even could be
>>used in combination with the timeout stuff perhaps (maybe temporarily
>>supressing it).
> 
> 
> A well designed plugin should not need it. And a badly designed plugin
> with keep saying "I'm working! I'm working!".
> What's the difference with a big timeout?
> 

Well, I'm thinking about what happens when you are scanning machines on 
very slow networks. I take the points you make though, and perhaps it 
isn't worthwhile.

Cheers

Rich.