network-scanner

What This Skill Does

The network-scanner skill is a robust diagnostic utility designed for the OpenClaw agent to discover and catalog devices on your local and remote networks. By leveraging powerful backend tools like nmap and dig, it performs comprehensive network reconnaissance, mapping IP addresses to hostnames via reverse DNS, and identifying hardware by MAC addresses and vendor data. This allows users to gain immediate insight into their network infrastructure, identifying active devices, verifying connection states, and detecting unknown equipment.

Installation

To install this skill, run the following command in your terminal: clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/florianbeer/network-scanner

Ensure that the necessary system dependencies are installed: nmap and dig. For optimal results, specifically for capturing MAC address information, the script should be run with elevated sudo privileges. Once installed, initialize your configuration by running python3 scripts/scan.py --init-config to generate your local settings file.

Use Cases

This skill is perfect for home lab enthusiasts, system administrators, and security-conscious users. You can use it to perform periodic network audits to ensure only authorized devices are connected to your Wi-Fi, troubleshoot connectivity issues by verifying device hostnames and IPs, or manage a list of trusted networks to quickly scan your infrastructure. It is particularly useful for identifying the IP addresses of headless devices like Raspberry Pis or NAS units that lack direct interface access.

Example Prompts

1. "OpenClaw, please scan my home network and provide a summary of all connected devices in JSON format."
2. "I need to verify if my new printer is connected to the office network. Can you run a network scan and list the vendors found?"
3. "Run a scan on the home network and filter the results to show me only the router and the NAS device."

Tips & Limitations

Safety is a primary feature of this tool; it includes built-in blocklists and public IP checks to prevent accidental scanning of restricted ranges. Always define your networks in the ~/.config/network-scanner/networks.json file to enable seamless scanning without repeated command-line arguments. Note that without sudo, the tool cannot access ARP tables, which will result in missing MAC addresses. Additionally, rely on the --json flag for integration with other automation pipelines, as the default markdown output is optimized for human readability.