WHATWEB (“What Is That Website?”)

The WhatWeb is a tool that is used to identify different web technologies including content management systems (CMS), blogging platforms, statistic/analytics packages, JavaScript libraries, web servers, and embedded devices. It has over 1700 plugins, each used to do something different.

• Platform
• CMS platform
• Type of Script
• Google Analytics
• Web server Platform
• IP address, Country
• 900+ Plugins & their libraries used
• Server Headers, Cookies, and a lot more.

It is included in Kali Linux, and it can be accessed with the help of applications like 03 — Web Application Analysis | Web Vulnerability scanners, etc.

WhatWeb Features

• Over 1700 plugins.
• Controls the trade-off between speed/stealth and reliability.
• Proxy support including TOR.
• Custom HTTP headers.
• Basic HTTP authentication.
• Performance tuning. Control how many websites to scan concurrently.
• Multiple log formats: Brief (greppable), Verbose (human readable), XML, JSON, MagicTree, RubyObject, MongoDB, SQL, and ElasticSearch.
• Performance tuning. Control how many websites to scan concurrently.
• Control over webpage redirection.
• Nmap-style IP ranges.
• Fuzzy matching.
• Result certainty awareness.
• Custom plugins are defined on the command line.

Synax:

whatweb

TARGET SELECTION:

Enter URLs, filenames or nmap-format IP ranges.--input-file=FILE, -i Identify URLs found in FILE, eg. -i /dev/stdin

TARGET MODIFICATION:

--url-prefix          Add a prefix to target URLs--url
-suffix               Add a suffix to target URLs
--url-pattern         Insert the targets into a URL. Requires --input-file,

AGGRESSION:

The aggression level controls the trade-off between speed/stealth and reliability.
--aggression, -a=LEVEL Set the aggression level. Default: 1
Aggression levels are: 1,2,3 & 4

HTTP OPTIONS:

--user-agent, -U=AGENT Identify as AGENT instead of WhatWeb/0.4.8-dev.
--follow-redirect=WHEN Control when to follow redirects.Default: always
--max-redirects=NUM   Maximum number of contiguous redirects. Default: 10

AUTHENTICATION:

--user, -u= HTTP basic authenticationAdd 
session cookies with --header, e.g. --header "Cookie: SESSID=1a2b3c;"

PROXY:

--proxy               <hostname[:port]> Set proxy hostname and port Default: 8080
--proxy-user          Set proxy user and password

PLUGINS:

--list-plugins, -l    List all plugins

OUTPUT:

--verbose, -v         Verbose output includes plugin descriptions. Use twice for debugging.
--colour,--color      WHEN control whether colour is used. WHEN='always', 'never' or 'auto'
--quiet, -q           Do not display brief logging to STDOUT
--no-errors           Suppress error messages

LOGGING:

--log-brief=FILE      Log brief, one-line output
--log-verbose=FILE    Log verbose output
--log-xml=FILE        Log XML format

PERFORMANCE & STABILITY:

--max-threads, -t     Number of simultaneous threads. Default: 25.
--open-timeout        Time in seconds. Default: 15
--read-timeout        Time in seconds. Default: 30
--wait=SECONDS        Wait SECONDS between connections

HELP & MISCELLANEOUS:

--help, -h            This help
--debug               Raise errors in plugins
--version             Display version information. (WhatWeb 0.4.8-dev)

While WhatWeb is primarily a website fingerprinter it can also be used for spidering, banner grabbing, vulnerability scanning and data mining.

Example Usage:

Examples of how to use WhatWeb to scan.

Using WhatWeb to scan hacksheet.in

Scan a single website :

WhatWeb example.com

This is the simplest way to scan a website. Specify a URL on the command-line.

Scan multiple websites

WhatWeb reddit.com slashdot.org twitter.com

You can scan multiple websites by specifying the URLs on the commandline

Scan a list of URLs from a file

whatweb --input-file list.txt

You can scan the URLs specified in list.txt.

whatweb -i list.txt

It is faster to just type -i than — input-list.

Scan a network range

whatweb --no-errors 192.168.0.0/24