ScanopyScanopy

Limitations

What Scanopy can and cannot do.

Scanopy is designed for discovering and visualizing local network infrastructure. This page documents known limitations and boundaries.

Network Scanning

IPv6

Scanopy currently supports IPv4 only.

Planned:

  • Collecting and displaying IPv6 addresses during discovery
  • Manual entry of IPv6 addresses when editing hosts

Not planned:

  • Full IPv6 subnet scanning (a /64 contains 18 quintillion addresses)

Large Subnets

Trying to scan a /8? That's 16 million IPs. Scanopy automatically skips subnets larger than /10 to prevent accidental mega-scans. Still, a /10 will probably take a couple of days to fully scan.

If you need to scan a large network, break it into smaller subnets and scan them individually.

Layer 2 vs Layer 3

For subnets the daemon is directly connected to:

  • MAC addresses are collected via ARP
  • All responsive hosts are discovered

For remote subnets (routed through a gateway):

  • No MAC addresses (ARP doesn't cross routers)
  • Only hosts with open ports are discovered
  • Some hosts may not respond to remote probes

For best results, deploy a daemon on each network segment. See Multi-VLAN Deployment.

Service Detection

Pattern-Based Detection

Scanopy detects services by matching against known patterns (ports, HTTP endpoints, headers). This means:

  • Services on non-standard ports may not be detected
  • Services must respond to HTTP probes to match endpoint patterns
  • Custom or obscure services won't be detected automatically

See Service Detection for how detection works and how to improve it.

What Can't Be Detected

  • Services that don't listen on network ports
  • Services behind authentication that block probing
  • Internal application components (microservices behind a gateway)
  • Cloud/SaaS services (Scanopy scans your network, not the internet)

Platform-Specific

Docker on macOS/Windows

Docker Desktop on macOS and Windows doesn't support host networking — the container can't see your actual network. Use the standalone binary instead.

Requesting Features

If a limitation affects your use case:

Service Detection

How Scanopy identifies services and what to do when detection fails.

Security

Security overview including data collection, storage, and authentication.

On this page

Network ScanningIPv6Large SubnetsLayer 2 vs Layer 3Service DetectionPattern-Based DetectionWhat Can't Be DetectedPlatform-SpecificDocker on macOS/WindowsRequesting Features