Feature request: IgnoreComments advanced option for word list processing

[snoski3]

I'm not sure if this should be under feature request or a bug.

Steps to reproduce

How'd you do it?

1. Use aux/scanner/ssh/ssh_enumusers
2. set user_file to /usr/share/wordlists/dirbuster/apache-user-enum-1.0.txt

This section should also tell us any relevant information about the
environment; for example, if an exploit that used to work is failing,
tell us the victim operating system and service versions.

Expected behavior

What should happen?
The scanner skips the comment section and continues to the list of words.

Current behavior

What happens instead?
It uses the comment section as input.

System stuff

Metasploit version

Get this with the version command in msfconsole (or git log -1 --pretty=oneline for a source install).
Framework: 5.0.11-dev
Console : 5.0.11-dev

I installed Metasploit with:

• [x ] Kali package via apt
• Omnibus installer (nightly)
• Commercial/Community installer (from http://www.rapid7.com/products/metasploit/download.jsp)
• Source install (please specify ruby version)

OS

What OS are you running Metasploit on?
Kali 2019.1

[bcoles]

This should probably be an advanced option IgnoreComments, off by default, so as to not unintentionally skip passwords beginning with a #.

An over-engineered approach may be to count the number of lines beginning with # and throw a warning. At which point it would already be too late, so, 🤷

As far as I'm aware, no standard exists for word lists. Considering lines prefaced with # to be comments is an unofficial standard. For example, despite their frequent use in CSV documents, the CSV standard does not permit comments.

[wvu]

I saw your post to the mailing list, @snoski3. I agree it can be a useful enhancement, but @bcoles hit all of my own points right on the head.

At best, I'd make this a default-off advanced option. There is no standard for processing word lists, and I'm not keen to generalize niche behavior.

Also, note that this behavior isn't exclusive to ssh_enumusers. That may complicate implementation.

In the meantime, I suggest preprocessing the file traditionally. Here's what I did with grep(1):

wvu@kharak:~/Downloads$ grep -vE '^(#|$)' apache-user-enum-1.0.txt > apache-user-enum-1.0-preprocessed.txt
wvu@kharak:~/Downloads$ head !$
head apache-user-enum-1.0-preprocessed.txt
~root
~toor
~bin
~daemon
~adm
~lp
~sync
~shutdown
~halt
~mail
wvu@kharak:~/Downloads$

Note that blank lines are also removed. With a Unix pipeline, you can use your imagination.

[github-actions]

Hi!

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