Skip to main content

A lightweight Flask-based dashboard for scanning and monitoring LAN devices

Project description

UbuntuWebServer - Flask Network Scanner

A modern, lightweight network device scanner built with Flask and Python. This dashboard detects all devices on your local network, identifies them by MAC/IP/hostname/vendor, optionally detects OS, and offers admin-editable notes for known devices.

=====================================

✅ Project Goal

Create a web-based dashboard on your Ubuntu server (or Proxmox VM) that:

  • Scans the network for connected devices (IP, MAC, hostname, vendor, OS)
  • Logs and displays results in a web UI
  • Allows tagging/notes for known hosts
  • Optionally alerts on new/unknown devices
  • Runs continuously with auto-refresh and deep scan automation

=====================================

🛠 Tools & Technologies

Task Tool
Web Server Apache2 (optional) / Flask
Backend Python (Flask)
Network Scanning nmap, mac-vendor-lookup
Frontend HTML/CSS/JS (Bootstrap)
Storage SQLite
Scheduling cron
Startup Automation systemd

=====================================

🧱 Architecture

[Ubuntu Server / Proxmox VM] | [Flask App - app.py] | [Nmap Scans + Deep Scan (cron)] | [SQLite Database + MAC Vendor DB] | [Bootstrap Web UI w/ Auto Refresh]

=====================================

🧪 Installation Instructions

  1. Clone and Setup

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/UbuntuWebServer.git cd UbuntuWebServer python3 -m venv venv source venv/bin/activate pip install -r requirements.txt

  1. Install Dependencies

sudo apt update sudo apt install nmap sqlite3 -y

  1. Initialize the Database

bash init_db.sh

  1. Start the Flask App

bash run_flask.sh

Then visit: http://:5000

=====================================

🔁 Sync & Restart from GitHub

bash sync_from_github.sh

This will:

  • Pull the latest code
  • Ensure sqlite3 is installed
  • Initialize the DB if needed
  • Restart the Flask app

=====================================

🔂 Automate Deep OS Scan

bash install_cron.sh

This sets up a cron job to run every 30 minutes: */30 * * * * /usr/bin/python3 /home/tim2/UbuntuWebServer/deep_scan.py

=====================================

🚀 Enable on Boot (systemd)

sudo cp flaskscanner.service /etc/systemd/system/ sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl enable flaskscanner sudo systemctl start flaskscanner

=====================================

🧾 Add/Edit Known Hosts

python insert_known_host.py

This will prompt for:

  • MAC
  • IP
  • Hostname
  • Vendor
  • OS
  • Notes

=====================================

📁 Project Layout

File Purpose
app.py Flask app, runs network scan
deep_scan.py OS detection, cron-based
insert_known_host.py CLI insert for known host DB
templates/ HTML UI (scan_results.html)
known_hosts.db SQLite DB for persistent host info
sync_to_github.sh Push code from Ubuntu → GitHub
sync_from_github.sh Pull updates from GitHub and restart
init_db.sh Creates the known_hosts table
flask.log, app_errors.log Log files

=====================================

🌐 Web UI Features

  • Auto-refresh every 15s
  • Manual refresh button
  • Search/filter box (IP, MAC, Vendor, Hostname)
  • Color badges by vendor
  • OS info from deep scans
  • Notes from DB
  • Responsive Bootstrap layout

=====================================

🩺 Troubleshooting

  • Ensure nmap is installed: sudo apt install nmap
  • If port 5000 fails, run: lsof -i :5000
  • Run with debug=True in development
  • For Windows compatibility, use WSL or Python 3.10+

=====================================

⚠️ Security Notice

This tool is for use on trusted private networks only. There is no authentication or encryption by default. Do not expose to the public internet.

=====================================

📸 Screenshots

(Add a screenshot named dashboard_screenshot.png in /static/)

=====================================

📄 License

MIT License

=====================================

🙋‍♂️ Author

Timothy Johnson II Hosted PBX Engineer, 123NET GitHub: https://github.com/tjohnsonII

Project details


Download files

Download the file for your platform. If you're not sure which to choose, learn more about installing packages.

Source Distribution

ubuntuwebscanner-1.0.9.tar.gz (82.3 kB view details)

Uploaded Source

Built Distribution

If you're not sure about the file name format, learn more about wheel file names.

ubuntuwebscanner-1.0.9-py3-none-any.whl (11.5 kB view details)

Uploaded Python 3

File details

Details for the file ubuntuwebscanner-1.0.9.tar.gz.

File metadata

  • Download URL: ubuntuwebscanner-1.0.9.tar.gz
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 82.3 kB
  • Tags: Source
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? No
  • Uploaded via: twine/6.1.0 CPython/3.13.3

File hashes

Hashes for ubuntuwebscanner-1.0.9.tar.gz
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 4da575330c642a1ac9d735c398db66cefbd9afd86a06a7debaf28fcaf0e63415
MD5 08bac0749e2602dd52c7e9879830a30c
BLAKE2b-256 9cefd695df5b810211c1e9f6c6156b5cf24cb7cccb8c57b714e2eba0e29ee487

See more details on using hashes here.

File details

Details for the file ubuntuwebscanner-1.0.9-py3-none-any.whl.

File metadata

File hashes

Hashes for ubuntuwebscanner-1.0.9-py3-none-any.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 a5769a9b3ae8bb08c33c95551605bfb54155addf99d1b2f8a393a0e9aea88118
MD5 6d607748eacb858994b1490c885cac69
BLAKE2b-256 ea7299caaa70527ac90ecd1ac1a331e0e213093f4e5dfff3dce671eb82880197

See more details on using hashes here.

Supported by

AWS Cloud computing and Security Sponsor Datadog Monitoring Depot Continuous Integration Fastly CDN Google Download Analytics Pingdom Monitoring Sentry Error logging StatusPage Status page