pulse

Scans hosts, ranges and CIDR blocks for open ports, and can name the service and keep the banner on each one it finds.

Daemon port: 4443
Licence: Apache-2.0
Install: crossfyre extension install pulse

Contents

Standalone usage Targets and ports Key options Postures On the platform

pulse scans hosts and ports to find what is open, closed or filtered, and can identify the service and grab a banner on each open port. It takes single hosts, hostnames or IPv4 CIDR ranges as targets, and port ranges, lists, or the built-in presets. On the platform, large scans are paced by the engine to the network path, so a scan runs fast on a healthy link without turning a slow-but-open port into a false negative.

Standalone usage

pulse --daemon &                       # start the engine (port 4443)

# top-1000 ports on a host
pulse scan -t example.com

# a CIDR block, explicit ports, service + banner detection
pulse scan -t 10.0.0.0/24 -p 22,80,443,8080 --service-detection

# a full sweep of several targets
pulse scan -t 10.0.0.5 10.0.0.6 -p all

The live UI shows a progress gauge, an open / closed / filtered tally, and a table of open and filtered ports with service, latency and banner. Closed ports are counted but not listed, to keep the table focused on what matters.

Targets and ports

Targets (-t): hostnames, IPv4 addresses, or IPv4 CIDR blocks such as 192.168.1.0/24. Pass several, space-separated.
Ports (-p): a range (1-1024), a list (80,443,8080), or a preset: top-100, top-1000 (the default), or all for every port.
Service detection (--service-detection): identifies the service on each open port and records the banner the server sends back.

Key options

Option	What it does
`-t, --targets`	Hosts, IPs or CIDR ranges. Repeatable.
`-p, --ports`	Range, list, or top-100 / top-1000 / all. Defaults to top-1000.
`--service-detection`	Identify the service and grab the banner on open ports.
`--tasks`	How many probes run in parallel. Higher is faster and louder.
`--timeout`	Per-probe timeout in milliseconds. Raise it on high-latency links.
`--delay`	Deliberately slow the scan by pausing between probes.

Postures

When run on the platform, a single dial sets how hard pulse is allowed to push, and the engine works within that envelope:

stealth: stay quiet and low-footprint.
balanced: the default middle ground.
throughput: open up and go as fast as a healthy path allows.

On the platform

Run pulse as a network-scan workflow across your fleet; the open web services it finds become targets for scout and cortex. Pick a posture and the platform sets the pace for you, so you don't hand-tune concurrency for every target.