What is BeanShell?

BeanShell is a small, free, embeddable Java source interpreter with object scripting language features, written in Java.

BeanShell dynamically executes standard Java syntax and extends it with common scripting conveniences such as loose types, commands, and method closures like those in Perl and JavaScript.

You can use BeanShell interactively for Java experimentation and debugging as well as to extend your applications in new ways. Scripting Java lends itself to a wide variety of applications including rapid prototyping, user scripting extension, rules engines, configuration, testing, dynamic deployment, embedded systems, and even Java education. BeanShell is small and embeddable, so you can call BeanShell from your Java applications to execute Java code dynamically at run-time or to provide extensibility in your applications.

Alternatively, you can use standalone BeanShell scripts to manipulate Java applications; working with Java objects and APIs dynamically.

Since BeanShell is written in Java and runs in the same VM as your application, you can freely pass references to "live" objects into scripts and return them as results.

In short, BeanShell is dynamically interpreted Java, plus a scripting language and flexible environment all rolled into one clean package.

Here is an announcement and papaer from Corsaire on the subject:

http://www.corsaire.com/white-papers/060816-assessing-java-clients-with-the-beanshell.pdf

Assessing the security of Java applications, and particularly client- server applications, can be a tedious process of modifying the code, compiling, deploying, testing and repeat. This becomes even more difficult when the source code to the application is not available.

What security testers require is an easy means of interacting with the internals of a Java application during execution without recompiling the code.

The BeanShell (http://www.beanshell.org ) provides an interpreted, scripting environment that can plug in to any Java application or applet and allows users to inspect and manipulate objects dynamically.

This paper demonstrates a technique for using the BeanShell to assess the security of a typical Java client-server application.

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Stephen de Vries
Corsaire Ltd
E-mail: stephen@corsaire.com
Tel: +44 1483 226014
Fax: +44 1483 226068
Web: http://www.corsaire.com