Skip to content

Installation

From PyPI

Create a virtual environment, activate it, then install HostLens

py -3.11 -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1
python -m pip install hostlens

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
python -m pip install hostlens

Check the installed command

hostlens --help

Python support

The package requires Python 3.11 or newer

The release workflow tests Python 3.11, 3.12, and 3.13

Raw ARP access

HostLens first reads the operating system neighbor table, so it can still return known devices when raw ARP is unavailable

Active ARP discovery has platform requirements

Windows

Install Npcap when Scapy cannot open a network adapter

Some systems also require an elevated PowerShell or terminal

Linux

Run from an account with raw socket access

For local testing, using sudo is the quickest check

For a service installation, grant only the capability the process needs instead of running the whole service as root

macOS

Raw packet access can require elevated privileges

The neighbor table, reverse DNS, and application-level collectors can still work without it

Development install

Clone the repository and install the development tools in editable mode

git clone https://github.com/Cyber0x3a/hostlens.git
cd hostlens
python -m venv .venv
python -m pip install -e ".[dev]"

The developer setup page covers the checks used by the repository