flatreader

Show HN: VNetMap – A zero-knowledge E2E encrypted network topology mapper

For years I have used Excel to document my Home Network. If you have switches, servers and many sevices i know you know what i mean by that. There was also no good way to know which patch panel cable runs to witch outlet and what's connected to it.

So I started building my own Angular app to map my network. I quickly wanted to automate the process of discovering new devices so i don't have to add every device manually. So I built a Docker agent that runs nmap to scan the Network. With the Scanning agent I also got the benefit of tracking all the devices and its state.

After some development and testing, I wanted to share my app with others. The most important thing for me was then to implement E2E Encryption because nobody wants to have their whole network in a cloud readable by anyone. All data gets encrypted locally on your device and then gets transmitted to the backend.

A big problem was and still is, the whole nmap discovery. Different vendors use different methods to broadcast the hostname (mDNS, NetBIOS, pure DNS).

Now, four months later, I finally have a production version. Feel free to test my app and i would like to get your opinions and feedback.