DirBuster

DirBuster (kali.org/tools/dirbuster, originally an OWASP project) is a multi-threaded Java application for brute-forcing directories and file names on web and application servers. Long pre-installed on Kali Linux, it is the GUI-era predecessor of gobuster and ffuf: slower (JVM, interpreted) but with a point-and-click interface, recursive tree view, and both list-based and pure brute-force modes. Its bundled directory-list-2.3-{small,medium,big}.txt wordlists (shipped under /usr/share/wordlists/dirbuster/) remain a de-facto standard and are routinely fed to other brute-forcers.

DirBuster is effectively unmaintained today (last release 1.0-RC1), and gobuster/ffuf have displaced it for speed and scripting, but it still ships with Kali and appears constantly in older course material and CTFs — worth recognizing on sight.

Headless usage

The CLI is a wrapper around the jar; -H runs headless (no GUI) and auto-saves a report on exit:

dirbuster -H -u http://$TARGET \
          -l /usr/share/wordlists/dirbuster/directory-list-2.3-medium.txt \
          -t 50 -r dirbuster-report.txt

Key options:

• -u URL — target (GUI starts prepopulated if -H is omitted)
• -H — headless mode; report written on exit
• -l FILE — wordlist (default directory-list-2.3-small.txt)
• -t N — connection threads (default 10; raise aggressively, e.g. 50)
• -e LIST — file extensions to append (default php; e.g. asp,aspx,txt)
• -s PATH — start point below the root (default /)
• -g — use GET requests only (no HEAD)
• -R — don’t recurse into discovered directories
• -r FILE — report output path
• -v — verbose

Related

• gobuster — the fast Go successor; consumes the same directory-list wordlists
• ffuf — general-purpose web fuzzer, now the common choice
• dirbuster — the older Java/OWASP GUI brute-forcer whose wordlists gobuster users still consume
• nikto — known-file/server-misconfig scanner, complementary to brute-force content discovery
• nmap — port/service discovery that precedes content enumeration

Sources

• Kali Linux Tools — dirbuster
• OWASP Community Pages