# royhills/arp-scan

The ARP Scanner

Repository: https://github.com/royhills/arp-scan
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/arp-scan
Language: C
License: GPL-3.0
License Family: copyleft
Topics: c, freebsd, libpcap, linux, macos, netbsd, openbsd, solaris, network-discovery, libcap, arp, gplv3
Last push: 2025-03-08T09:04:11+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 27/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 10, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4766, "days_push": 543, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1289, forks 178 (observed 2026-08-28T04:04:15.279766+00:00)

## What it is
arp-scan is a command-line network scanning tool that uses ARP requests to discover and fingerprint IPv4 hosts on a local network. It is written in C, uses libpcap, and runs on Linux, BSD, macOS, and Solaris under the GPLv3 license.

## Use cases
- discover all devices on my local network
- find unknown hosts connected to my LAN
- fingerprint network devices by MAC address
- scan a subnet for live IPv4 hosts
- detect rogue devices on the network
- map IP addresses to MAC addresses

## When to choose
- you need fast local network host discovery on Unix-like systems
- you want ARP-based scanning that works without IP connectivity to targets
- you need MAC address vendor fingerprinting of LAN devices

## When to avoid
- you need to scan hosts across routers or the internet (ARP is link-local only)
- you need IPv6 discovery
- you need a GUI-based network scanner

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: security, networking, developer-tools
- domain: networking, security, developer-tools
- platform: bsd, cli
- tags: arp-scanning, network-discovery, host-fingerprinting, libpcap, penetration-testing, command-line, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- royhills/arp-scan (main) score 27

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:15.279766+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 2026-08-30T04:55:46.159381+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/royhills/arp-scan (fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:15.279766+00:00, sha 4f65f677fff2)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.