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Parameters and flags

The reveal command needs to receive at least a file or directory name where to perform the search. If we just call the command without giving any location to search, it will just display the the list of parameters and flags we can use with a quick help of what they do.

$ reveal
usage: reveal [<flags>] [<path>...]

A command-line application to find potential PAN numbers in files and directories.

Flags:
      --help              Show context-sensitive help (also try --help-long and --help-man).
  -v, --verbose           Add verbosity to the output
  -l, --pan-length=0      BIN length to consider (must be 16 or 19, or 0 for both)
  -b, --bin-length=6      Minimum BIN length to consider (0 to 8) - Default: 6
  -d, --delimited         Only consider PANs that are delimited by non numeric characters
  -p, --print             Print the lines containing possible PANs
  -P, --print-extended    Print the lines containing possible PANs with context (like -p -c)
  -s, --summary           Show a summary of findings on each file
  -S, --summary-extended  Show a summary of findings on each file with more information
  -t, --totals            Only display summary totals when processing sevaral files
  -c, --condensed         Print results in a condensed format (like a table) This is the default output format
      --paranoid          Consider all possible card numbers (ignoring BIN lists, just check Luhn)
      --distance=50       Confidence distance, is the max distance between keywords and the PAN (default: 50)
      --parallel          Perform search in parallel (optimized search with several files)
  -i, --interactive       Process results interactively in a TUI
      --nowhitelist       Do not use a whitelist file even if it exists
  -x, --export            Exports the results as an Excel file
  -e, --excel             Include Excel files in the search
  -E, --ignore            Exclude Excel files in the search when using the --massive option
  -w, --write             Write findings to a file
  -m, --massive           Perform a MASSIVE search, for huge volumes of files
      --limit=LIMIT       Limit the number of parallel processes. Default is the number of processors. It can be even a greater value
      --xmax=XMAX         Max size for Excel files to process in Mb (default 10)

Args:
  [<path>]  Files or directories to process.

Let's see the list of parameters and flags we can use and what they do. For more detailed information about each one please refer to the corresponding section.

file / path​

The most important thing we need to supply is at least a name of a file or directory to search. We can just specify one value or a list

--help​

It just shows this same information, similar to what we get when no location is given.

--verbose (-v)​

In many cases the presence of this flag forces to display more information on screen. It depends on the particular output

--pan-length (-l)​

We can specify the length of the PAN to consider, with the options of focusing only in lengths of 16 or 19 (use the value 0 or omit this flag to consider both lengths)

--bin-length (-b)​

We can specify the minimum length of the BIN to consider, which by default is 6. If we provide a higher value we will be more specific on the BINs to consider, while putting a value of 0 completely disables the BIN checking

--delimited (-d)​

We will only consider values that are delimited by non numberic characters (not considering digit strings contained inside others)

--print (-p)​

With this flag we will show in the output the line numbers and values that we find

--print-extended (-P)​

Similar to the previous flag, we will also print the content of the full line that contains the value

--summary (-s)​

Add a summary of findings for each processed file that contains possible values

--summary-extended (-S)​

Shows more information for each file that contains possible values

--totals (-t)​

Just show the totals when processing multiple files

--condensed (-c)​

This shows a summary of all findings in a compact way (like a table). This is the output format by default.

--paranoid​

We remove all filters (except for the Luhn check)

--distance=​

We can specify the maximum distance to consider between a key word and the value in order to affect the confidence level

--paralel​

Forces the process to execute in parallel to improve searching times when processing multiple files

--interactive (-i)​

When the search is finished, enter an interactive screen (TUI) to review the findings

--nowhitelist​

It forces to ignore the "white listings" even the file is present.

--export (-x)​

This exports the results to an Excel file

--excel (-e)​

This includes Excel files in the search

--ignore (-E)​

It ignores the Excel files when using the --massive flag, which automatically includes them

--write (-w)​

Writes the results into a file

--massive (-m)​

This changes the way the search if performed, processing multiple files at once, and it is optimized to process high number of files

--limit=​

When processing files in parallel, we can define the number of simultaneous processes. By default this value is the same as the number of available processors, but we can force to use a lower or higher value

--xmax=​

Processing Excel files is slow and consumes a lot of memory, and processing large files can consume the resources. The tool limits the maximum size of Excel files to 10 Mb, but we can specify here a different limit.