Security Administrator Tool for Analyzing Networks

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The Security Administrator Tool for Analyzing Networks (SATAN) is a testing and reporting toolbox that collects a variety of information about networked hosts and was considered one of the best when written. In fact, it was the first truly user-friendly network scanner. It features an HTML interface, complete with forms to enter targets, tables to display results and context-sensitive tutorials that appear when a hole has been found.

The tool was developed by Dan Farmer and Wietse Venema. Neil Gaiman drew the artwork for the SATAN documentation.

SATAN was designed to help systems administrators automate the process of testing their systems for known vulnerabilities that can be exploited via the network. This is particularly useful for networked systems with multiple hosts. Like most security tools, it is useful for good or bad purposes -