# aflnet/aflnet

AFLNet: A Greybox Fuzzer for Network Protocols (https://thuanpv.github.io/publications/AFLNet_ICST20.pdf)

Repository: https://github.com/aflnet/aflnet
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/aflnet
Language: C
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2025-05-26T22:53:22+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 43/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 23, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2410, "days_push": 464, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1011, forks 226 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:13.102538+00:00)

## What it is
AFLNet is a greybox fuzzer for network protocol server implementations, extending American Fuzzy Lop with state-feedback derived from server response codes. It requires no protocol specification or message grammar, instead mutating recorded client-server message exchanges to increase code and state coverage.

## Use cases
- fuzz a network protocol server implementation
- find crashes and vulnerabilities in protocol implementations without a spec
- mutate recorded message sequences to explore server state space
- greybox fuzzing of servers like FTP, SMTP, DNS
- security testing of network daemons

## When to choose
- you have a server binary and recorded message exchanges but no protocol grammar
- you want coverage- and state-guided protocol fuzzing based on AFL
- you need to discover deep server states via response-code feedback

## When to avoid
- you need to fuzz client-side or non-network software (use vanilla AFL instead)
- you require a Windows or macOS fuzzing environment
- you need structured grammar-based generation rather than mutation of recorded traffic

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: fuzzing, testing, security
- domain: security, testing, networking, developer-tools
- platform: cli
- tags: greybox-fuzzing, protocol-fuzzing, afl, state-feedback, network-protocols, linux

## Member repositories
- aflnet/aflnet (main) score 43

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:13.102538+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T07:11:49.312270+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/aflnet/aflnet (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:13.102538+00:00, sha 46938eec79ee)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.