Host Lookup is an iPhone app that is a useful tool for support and network techs. As the name implies, it will let you do a quick lookup of a host name (i.e a computer or network / domain name) “ and get back its IP address.
The app also lets you identify which country an IP address comes from, and even do some port scanning.
Host Lookup is a simple and stable app. Here ‘s a little closer look at what you can do with it:
First off there is name to IP address resolution
Once you ‘ve got an IP address, you can choose to use that address for an ‘IP 2 Country ‘ lookup
As you can see in the above screencap, you can also choose to use the IP address for a port scan.
Port scanning is a very useful activity if you are keeping check of a network and trying to limit vulnerabilities, restrict the numbers of possible attack points an intruder might try to exploit.
Not surprisingly, on the iPhone and via a WiFi connection port scanning is very slow if you try to do a range of ports at once (somebody needs to bring NMAP to the iPhone). The app warns you of this though, which is good
My experience is that it is best to scan a single port at a time, or a very small number “ otherwise you will wait an awful long time for it to complete, and the iPhone will likely go into sleep mode and chop off the scan if you ‘re not paying attention to it. This doesn ‘t strike me as too big a deal. If you ‘re doing a real thorough scan, it is not likely to be from the iPhone, or any mobile device.
If on the other hand you just want to prove to a client, or colleague, that there is an unauthorized FTP server somewhere on the network, then Host Lookup will let you quickly prove your assertion. And that ‘s an impressive thing to do with just a smartphone.
It would be nice to see the app add some more IP-related utilities “ a more complete set of ‘lookup ‘ queries would be nice, such as those you can do via nslookup on a command line, for instance. An ability to email lookup / scan results, and bookmark them in the app, would be good “ and a traceroute function would be too.
Hopefully future updates will add more features. This is already an effective tool, with no major bugs that I have seen “ so hopefully the developers can focus on broadening the tool set in it.
You can find Host Lookup in the App Store now, at a price of just $0.99.
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