Pablo Guides

# gospider$ Web Scraping and Pentesting Course

## Section 1: Installation and Configuration on Kali Linux

### Introduction to gospider$

gospider$ is an impressive web crawling tool that is essential for penetration testing and web scraping. It is designed to discover URLs and gather information about the target website. This tool can be used to automate the collection of data that may be useful for further security testing, making it an essential part of a pentester’s toolkit.

### Installation of gospider$

Installing gospider$ on Kali Linux is a straightforward process. Here, we will detail the steps required for installation, along with any required configurations.

#### Step 1: Update Your System

Before installing any new software, it is critical to ensure your system is up to date. Open your terminal and run the following commands:

"`bash
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y
"`

#### Step 2: Install gospider$

You can install gospider$ directly from Kali's repositories as it is included in the default package list. Use the following command to install it:

"`bash
sudo apt install gospider -y
"`

Alternatively, if you want the latest version from GitHub, you can build it from source. Here is how to do it:

"`bash
# Install Go if it's not already installed
sudo apt install golang -y

# Set GOPATH
export GOPATH=$HOME/go
export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin

# Download gospider
go get -u github.com/jaeles-project/gospider

# Navigate to the directory
cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/jaeles-project/gospider

# Build gospider
go build
"`

### Step 3: Verify Installation

To confirm that gospider$ has been successfully installed, run:

"`bash
gospider -h
"`

If successful, you will see a help menu that provides various options and usage guidelines for the tool.

### Configuration of gospider$

gospider$ does not require extensive configurations for basic operations. However, you can configure several options to tailor its performance according to your needs. Here is an example of how you can set some options in a configuration file.

#### Example Configuration

You can create a configuration file, `gospider_config.json`, to include options such as user-agent, timeout, depth, and more.

"`json
{
"user-agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/91.0.4472.124 Safari/537.36",
"timeout": 30,
"max-depth": 3
}
"`

To use this configuration file with gospider$, execute:

"`bash
gospider -c gospider_config.json -s https://example.com
"`

## Step-by-Step Usage and Real-World Use Cases

### Basic Usage

Using gospider$ is simple and can be done with a few commands. Here are the basic commands:

"`bash
gospider -s
"`

### Real-World Use Cases

1. **Finding URLs for Testing**: One of the most common uses of gospider$ is to find hidden URLs on a web application. This can help discover endpoints that might not be documented.

   gospider -s https://example.com -o output.txt

 

This command will store discovered URLs in `output.txt`.

2. **Crawling with Specific Depth**: If you want to limit the crawling depth to avoid excessive requests, use:

   gospider -s https://example.com -d 2

 

3. **Using Custom User-Agent**: Some websites block requests from default user-agents. You can specify a custom user-agent string to bypass these blocks.

   gospider -s https://example.com -a "YourCustomUserAgent"

 

4. **Combining with Other Tools**: gospider$ can be combined with tools like Burp Suite or OWASP ZAP for further analysis.

### Detailed Technical Explanations

#### Internal Mechanism of gospider$

gospider$ operates by sending HTTP requests to a specified target and then parsing the HTML responses to discover URLs, forms, and endpoints. It utilizes concurrency to improve performance, meaning it can handle multiple requests simultaneously.

The tool uses Go routines, which are lightweight threads managed by the Go runtime, enabling fast and efficient network communication.

– **Crawling**: It follows links within HTML pages, collecting data iteratively based on the specified depth.
– **Discovering Endpoints**: By recognizing URL patterns, it can find hidden resources that are not explicitly linked from the main page.

#### External References

– [gospider GitHub Repository](https://github.com/jaeles-project/gospider)
– [Go Programming Language Documentation](https://golang.org/doc/)
– [OWASP Web Security Testing Guide](https://owasp.org/www-project-web-security-testing-guide/)

## Code Examples in Markdown Code Blocks for WordPress

To aid in integration with WordPress or any web application, here are some code examples:

### Example 1: Basic Crawl Command

"`bash
gospider -s https://example.com
"`

### Example 2: Specifying Output Format

"`bash
gospider -s https://example.com -o json -o output.json
"`

### Example 3: Rate Limiting Requests

"`bash
gospider -s https://example.com –delay 2
"`

### Example 4: Using a Configuration File

"`bash
gospider -c gospider_config.json -s https://example.com
"`

### Example 5: Filtering URL Results

If you are only interested in specific file types, you can filter results like this:

"`bash
gospider -s https://example.com –filter "jpg|png|pdf"
"`

## Conclusion

In this section, we have covered the installation and configuration of gospider$ on Kali Linux, its basic usage, and various real-world use cases. Understanding how to use gospider$ effectively can significantly enhance your web security testing capabilities.

Remember to always use these tools responsibly and ethically, adhering to the laws and regulations of your jurisdiction.

—

Made by pablo rotem / פבלו רותם