NMAP - A Stealth Port Scanner

Andrew J. Bennieston
http://www.nmap-tutorial.com
Contents
1 Introduction 4

2 Disclaimer 4

3 Basic Scan Types [-sT, -sS] 4

3.1 TCP connect() Scan [-sT] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2 SYN Stealth Scan [-sS] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

4 FIN, Null and Xmas Tree Scans [-sF, -sN, -sX] 6

5 Ping Scan [-sP] 7

6 UDP Scan [-sU] 8

7 IP Protocol Scans [-sO] 8

8 Idle Scanning [-sI] 9

9 Version Detection [-sV] 10

10 ACK Scan [-sA] 10

11 Window Scan, RPC Scan, List Scan [-sW, -sR, -sL] 11

12 Timing and Hiding Scans 11

12.1 Timing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
12.2 Decoys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
12.3 FTP Bounce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
12.4 Turning Off Ping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
12.5 Fragmenting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
12.6 Idle Scanning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

13 OS Fingerprinting 13

14 Outputting Logs 13

15 Other Nmap Options 13

15.1 IPv6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
15.2 Verbose Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
15.3 Resuming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
15.4 Reading Targets From A File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
15.5 Fast Scan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
15.6 Time-To-Live . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

2
16 Typical Scanning Session 14

17 Frequently Asked Questions 18

17.1 I tried a scan and it appeared in firewall logs or alerts. What else
can I do to help hide my scan? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
17.2 NMAP seems to have stopped, or my scan is taking a very long
while. Why is this? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
17.3 Will -sN -sX and -sF work against any host, or just Windows hosts? 20
17.4 How do I find a dummy host for the Idle Scan (-sI)? . . . . . . . . 20
17.5 What does Host seems down. If it is really up, but blocking our
ping probes, try -P0 mean? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
17.6 Where can I find NmapFE? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

18 About This Document 20

3
1 Introduction
Nmap is a free, open-source port scanner available for both UNIX and Windows.
It has an optional graphical front-end, NmapFE, and supports a wide variety of
scan types, each one with different benefits and drawbacks.
This article describes some of these scan types, explaining their relative ben-
efits and just how they actually work. It also offers tips about which types of
scan would be best against which types of host.
The article assumes you have Nmap installed (or that you know how to install
it. Instructions are available on the Nmap website, http://www.insecure.org/
nmap/install/inst-source.html ), and that you have the required privileges
to run the scans detailed (many scans require root or Administrator privileges).
A frequently asked questions section has been added since the first version of
this article, and this is included as the last section in this version. This is a fully
revised and updated version of this tutorial, re-typed and converted to a TeX
format, allowing more output formats to be utilised. At the time of writing, the
latest Nmap version was 4.11.

2 Disclaimer
This information is provided to assist users of Nmap in scanning their own net-
works, or networks for which they have been given permission to scan, in order
to determine the security of such networks. it is not intended to assist with scan-
ning remote sites with the intention of breaking into or exploiting services on
those sites, or for imformation gathering purposes beyond those allowed by law.
I hereby disclaim any responsibility for actions taken based upon the information
in this article, and urge all who seek information towards a destructive end to
reconsider their life, and do something constructive instead.

3 Basic Scan Types [-sT, -sS]

The two basic scan types used most in Nmap are TCP connect() scanning [-sT]
and SYN scanning (also known as half-open, or stealth scanning) [-sS].
These two types are explained in detail below.

3.1 TCP connect() Scan [-sT]

These scans are so called because UNIX sockets programming uses a system call
named connect() to begin a TCP connection to a remote site. If connect()
succeeds, a connection was made. If it fails, the connection could not be made
(the remote system is offline, the port is closed, or some other error occurred
along the way). This allows a basic type of port scan, which attempts to connect

4
to every port in turn, and notes whether or not the connection succeeded. Once
the scan is completed, ports to which a connection could be established are listed
as open, the rest are said to be closed.
This method of scanning is very effective, and provides a clear picture of the
ports you can and cannot access. If a connect() scan lists a port as open, you
can definitely connect to it - that is what the scanning computer just did! There
is, however, a major drawback to this kind of scan; it is very easy to detect on
the system being scanned. If a firewall or intrusion detection system is running
on the victim, attempts to connect() to every port on the system will almost
always trigger a warning. Indeed, with modern firewalls, an attempt to connect
to a single port which has been blocked or has not been specifically opened will
usually result in the connection attempt being logged. Additionally, most servers
will log connections and their source IP, so it would be easy to detect the source
of a TCP connect() scan.
For this reason, the TCP Stealth Scan was developed.

3.2 SYN Stealth Scan [-sS]

Ill begin this section with an overview of the TCP connection process. Those
familiar with TCP/IP can skip the first few paragraphs.
When a TCP connection is made between two systems, a process known as a
three way handshake occurs. This involves the exchange of three packets, and
synchronises the systems with each other (necessary for the error correction built
into TCP. Refer to a good TCP/IP book for more details.
The system initiating the connection sends a packet to the system it wants
to connect to. TCP packets have a header section with a flags field. Flags tell
the receiving end something about the type of packet, and thus what the correct
response is.
Here, I will talk about only four of the possible flags. These are SYN (Syn-
chronise), ACK (Acknowledge), FIN (Finished) and RST (Reset). SYN packets
include a TCP sequence number, which lets the remote system know what se-
quence numbers to expect in subsequent communication. ACK acknowledges re-
ceipt of a packet or set of packets, FIN is sent when a communication is finished,
requesting that the connection be closed, and RST is sent when the connection
is to be reset (closed immediately).
To initiate a TCP connection, the initiating system sends a SYN packet to
the destination, which will respond with a SYN of its own, and an ACK, acknowl-
edging the receipt of the first packet (these are combined into a single SYN/ACK
packet). The first system then sends an ACK packet to acknowledge receipt of
the SYN/ACK, and data transfer can then begin.
SYN or Stealth scanning makes use of this procedure by sending a SYN packet
and looking at the response. If SYN/ACK is sent back, the port is open and the
remote end is trying to open a TCP connection. The scanner then sends an RST

5
to tear down the connection before it can be established fully; often preventing
the connection attempt appearing in application logs. If the port is closed, an
RST will be sent. If it is filtered, the SYN packet will have been dropped and
no response will be sent. In this way, Nmap can detect three port states - open,
closed and filtered. Filtered ports may require further probing since they could
be subject to firewall rules which render them open to some IPs or conditions,
and closed to others.
Modern firewalls and Intrusion Detection Systems can detect SYN scans, but
in combination with other features of Nmap, it is possible to create a virtually
undetectable SYN scan by altering timing and other options (explained later).

4 FIN, Null and Xmas Tree Scans [-sF, -sN, -sX]

With the multitude of modern firewalls and IDS now looking out for SYN scans,
these three scan types may be useful to varying degrees. Each scan type refers
to the flags set in the TCP header. The idea behind these type of scans is that
a closed port should respond with an RST upon receiving packets, whereas an
open port should just drop them (its listening for packets with SYN set). This
way, you never make even part of a connection, and never send a SYN packet;
which is what most IDS look out for.
The FIN scan sends a packet with only the FIN flag set, the Xmas Tree scan
sets the FIN, URG and PUSH flags (see a good TCP/IP book for more details)
and the Null scan sends a packet with no flags switched on.
These scan types will work against any system where the TCP/IP implemen-
tation follows RFC 793. Microsoft Windows does not follow the RFC, and will
ignore these packets even on closed ports. This technicality allows you to detect
an MS Windows system by running SYN along with one of these scans. If the
SYN scan shows open ports, and the FIN/NUL/XMAS does not, chances are
youre looking at a Windows box (though OS Fingerprinting is a much more
reliable way of determining the OS running on a target!)
The sample below shows a SYN scan and a FIN scan, performed against a
Linux system. The results are, predictably, the same, but the FIN scan is less
likely to show up in a logging system.

1 [chaos]# nmap -sS 127.0.0.1

2
3 Starting Nmap 4.01 at 2006-07-06 17:23 BST
4 Interesting ports on chaos (127.0.0.1):
5 (The 1668 ports scanned but not shown below are in state:
6 closed)
7 PORT STATE SERVICE
8 21/tcp open ftp

6
 9 22/tcp open ssh
10 631/tcp open ipp
11 6000/tcp open X11
12
13 Nmap finished: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.207
14 seconds
15 [chaos]# nmap -sF 127.0.0.1
16
17 Starting Nmap 4.01 at 2006-07-06 17:23 BST
18 Interesting ports on chaos (127.0.0.1):
19 (The 1668 ports scanned but not shown below are in state:
20 closed)
21 PORT STATE SERVICE
22 21/tcp open|filtered ftp
23 22/tcp open|filtered ssh
24 631/tcp open|filtered ipp
25 6000/tcp open|filtered X11
26
27 Nmap finished: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 1.284
28 seconds

5 Ping Scan [-sP]

This scan type lists the hosts within the specified range that responded to a ping.
It allows you to detect which computers are online, rather than which ports are
open. Four methods exist within Nmap for ping sweeping.
The first method sends an ICMP ECHO REQUEST (ping request) packet to
the destination system. If an ICMP ECHO REPLY is received, the system is up,
and ICMP packets are not blocked. If there is no response to the ICMP ping,
Nmap will try a TCP Ping, to determine whether ICMP is blocked, or if the
host is really not online.
A TCP Ping sends either a SYN or an ACK packet to any port (80 is the
default) on the remote system. If RST, or a SYN/ACK, is returned, then the
remote system is online. If the remote system does not respond, either it is offline,
or the chosen port is filtered, and thus not responding to anything.
When you run an Nmap ping scan as root, the default is to use the ICMP and
ACK methods. Non-root users will use the connect() method, which attempts to
connect to a machine, waiting for a response, and tearing down the connection as
soon as it has been established (similar to the SYN/ACK method for root users,
but this one establishes a full TCP connection!)
The ICMP scan type can be disabled by setting -P0 (that is, zero, not upper-
case o).

7
6 UDP Scan [-sU]
Scanning for open UDP ports is done with the -sU option. With this scan type,
Nmap sends 0-byte UDP packets to each target port on the victim. Receipt of
an ICMP Port Unreachable message signifies the port is closed, otherwise it is
assumed open.
One major problem with this technique is that, when a firewall blocks out-
going ICMP Port Unreachable messages, the port will appear open. These false-
positives are hard to distinguish from real open ports.
Another disadvantage with UDP scanning is the speed at which it can be
performed. Most operating systems limit the number of ICMP Port Unreachable
messages which can be generated in a certain time period, thus slowing the speed
of a UDP scan. Nmap adjusts its scan speed accordingly to avoid flooding a
network with useless packets. An interesting point to note here is that Microsoft
do not limit the Port Unreachable error generation frequency, and thus it is easy
to scan a Windows machines 65,535 UDP Ports in very little time!!
UDP Scanning is not usually useful for most types of attack, but it can reveal
information about services or trojans which rely on UDP, for example SNMP,
NFS, the Back Orifice trojan backdoor and many other exploitable services.
Most modern services utilise TCP, and thus UDP scanning is not usually
included in a pre-attack information gathering exercise unless a TCP scan or
other sources indicate that it would be worth the time taken to perform a UDP
scan.

7 IP Protocol Scans [-sO]

The IP Protocol Scans attempt to determine the IP protocols supported on a
target. Nmap sends a raw IP packet without any additional protocol header (see
a good TCP/IP book for information about IP packets), to each protocol on the
target machine. Receipt of an ICMP Protocol Unreachable message tells us the
protocol is not in use, otherwise it is assumed open. Not all hosts send ICMP
Protocol Unreachable messages. These may include firewalls, AIX, HP-UX and
Digital UNIX). These machines will report all protocols open.
This scan type also falls victim to the ICMP limiting rate described in the
UDP scans section, however since only 256 protocols are possible (8-bit field for
IP protocol in the IP header) it should not take too long.
Results of an -sO on my Linux workstation are included below.

1 [chaos]# nmap -sO 127.0.0.1

2
3 Starting Nmap 4.01 at 2006-07-14 12:56 BST
4 Interesting protocols on chaos(127.0.0.1):

8
 5 (The 251 protocols scanned but not shown below are
6 in state: closed)
7 PROTOCOL STATE SERVICE
8 1 open icmp
9 2 open|filtered igmp
10 6 open tcp
11 17 open udp
12 255 open|filtered unknown
13
14 Nmap finished: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in
15 1.259 seconds

8 Idle Scanning [-sI]

Idle scanning is an advanced, highly stealthed technique, where no packets are
sent to the target which can be identified to originate from the scanning machine.
A zombie host (and optionally port) must be specified for this scan type. The
zombie host must satisfy certain criteria essential to the workings of this scan.
This scan type works by exploiting predictable IP fragmentation ID se-
quence generation on the zombie host, to determine open ports on the target.
The scan checks the IPID on the zombie, then spoofs a connection request to the
target machine, making it appear to come from the zombie. If the target port is
open, a SYN/ACK session acknowledgement will be sent from the target machine
back to the zombie, which will RST the connection since it has no record of hav-
ing opened such a connection. If the port on the target is closed, an RST will be
sent to the zombie, and no further packets will be sent. The attacker then checks
the IPID on the zombie again. If it has incremented by 2 (or changed by two
steps in its sequence), this corresponds to the packet received from the target,
plus the RST from the zombie, which equates to an open port on the target. If
the IPID has changed by one step, an RST was received from the target and no
further packets were sent.
Using this mechanism, it is possible to scan every port on a target, whilst
making it appear that the zombie was the one doing the scanning. Of course,
the spoofed connection attempts will likely be logged, so the target system will
have the zombie IP address, and the zombie systems logs are likely to contain
the attackers IP address, so it is still possible, after acquiring logs through legal
channels, to determine the attacker, but this method makes it much more difficult
to do so than if the packets were sent directly from the attacker. In addition,
some IDS and firewall software makes attempts to detect spoofed packets based
on the network they arrive from. As long as the zombie host and the attacker
are both out on the Internet, or on the same network as each other, relative to
the target, techniques to identify spoofed packets are not likely to succeed.

9
 This scan type requires certain things of the zombie. The IPID sequence
generation must be predictable (single-step increments, for example). The host
must also have low traffic so that it is unlikely for other packets to hit the zombie
whilst Nmap is carrying out its scan (as these will artificially inflate the IPID
number!). Cheap routers or MS Windows boxes make good zombie hosts. Most
operating systems use randomised sequence numbers (see the OS Fingerprinting
section for details on how to check a targets sequence generation type).
The idle scan can also be used to determine IP trust based relationships
between hosts (e.g. a firewall may allow a certain host to connect to port x, but
not other hosts). This scan type can help to determine which hosts have access
to such a system.
For more information about this scan type, read http://www.insecure.org/
nmap/idlescan.html

9 Version Detection [-sV]

Version Detection collects information about the specific service running on an
open port, including the product name and version number. This information can
be critical in determining an entry point for an attack. The -sV option enables
version detection, and the -A option enables both OS fingerprinting and version
detection, as well as any other advanced features which may be added in future
releases.
Version detection is based on a complex series of probes, detailed in the Ver-
sion Detection paper at http://www.insecure.org/nmap/vscan/

10 ACK Scan [-sA]

Usually used to map firewall rulesets and distinguish between stateful and state-
less firewalls, this scan type sends ACK packets to a host. If an RST comes back,
the port is classified unfiltered (that is, it was allowed to send its RST through
whatever firewall was in place). If nothing comes back, the port is said to be
filtered. That is, the firewall prevented the RST coming back from the port.
This scan type can help determine if a firewall is stateless (just blocks incoming
SYN packets) or stateful (tracks connections and also blocks unsolicited ACK
packets).
Note that an ACK scan will never show ports in the open state, and so it
should be used in conjunction with another scan type to gain more information
about firewalls or packet filters between yourself and the victim.

10
11 Window Scan, RPC Scan, List Scan [-sW,
-sR, -sL]
The TCP Window scan is similar to the ACK scan but can sometimes detect
open ports as well as filtered/unfiltered ports. This is due to anomalies in TCP
Window size reporting by some operating systems (see the Nmap manual for a
list, or the nmap-hackers mailing list for the full list of susceptible OS).
RPC Scans can be used in conjunction with other scan types to try to deter-
mine if an open TCP or UDP port is an RPC service, and if so, which program,
and version numbers are running on it. Decoys are not supported with RPC
scans (see section on Timing and Hiding Scans, below).
List scanning simply prints a list of IPs and names (DNS resolution will be
used unless the -n option is passed to Nmap) without actually pinging or scanning
the hosts.

12 Timing and Hiding Scans

12.1 Timing
Nmap adjusts its timings automatically depending on network speed and response
times of the victim. However, you may want more control over the timing in order
to create a more stealthy scan, or to get the scan over and done with quicker.
The main timing option is set through the -T parameter. There are six pre-
defined timing policies which can be specified by name or number (starting with
0, corresponding to Paranoid timing). The timings are Paranoid, Sneaky, Polite,
Normal, Aggressive and Insane.
A -T Paranoid (or -T0) scan will wait (generally) at least 5 minutes between
each packet sent. This makes it almost impossible for a firewall to detect a port
scan in progress (since the scan takes so long it would most likely be attributed
to random network traffic). Such a scan will still show up in logs, but it will be
so spread out that most analysis tools or humans will miss it completely.
A -T Insane (or -T5) scan will map a host in very little time, provided you
are on a very fast network or dont mind losing some information along the way.
Timings for individual aspects of a scan can also be set using the host timeout,
max rtt timeout, min rtt timeout, initial rtt timeout, max parallelism, min parallelism,
and scan delay options. See the Nmap manual for details.

12.2 Decoys
The -D option allows you to specify Decoys. This option makes it look like those
decoys are scanning the target network. It does not hide your own IP, but it
makes your IP one of a torrent of others supposedly scanning the victim at the

11
same time. This not only makes the scan look more scary, but reduces the chance
of you being traced from your scan (difficult to tell which system is the real
source).

12.3 FTP Bounce

The FTP protocol (RFC 959) specified support for a proxy ftp, which allowed
a connection to an FTP server to send data to anywhere on the internet. This
tends not to work with modern ftpds, in which it is an option usually disabled in
the configuration. If a server with this feature is used by Nmap, it can be used
to try to connect to ports on your victim, thus determining their state.
This scan method allows for some degree of anonymity, although the FTP
server may log connections and commands sent to it.

12.4 Turning Off Ping

The -P0 (thats a zero) option allows you to switch off ICMP pings. The -PT
option switches on TCP Pings, you can specify a port after the -PT option to be
the port to use for the TCP ping.
Disabling pings has two advantages: First, it adds extra stealth if youre
running one of the more stealthy attacks, and secondly it allows Nmap to scan
hosts which dont reply to pings (ordinarily, Nmap would report those hosts as
being down and not scan them).
In conjunction with -PT, you can use -PS to send SYN packets instead of
ACK packets for your TCP Ping.
The -PU option (with optional port list after) sends UDP packets for your
ping. This may be best to send to suspected-closed ports rather than open
ones, since open UDP ports tend not to respond to zero-length UDP packets.
Other ping types are -PE (Standard ICMP Echo Request), -PP (ICMP Times-
tamp Request), -PM (Netmask Request) and -PB (default, uses both ICMP Echo
Request and TCP ping, with ACK packets)

12.5 Fragmenting
The -f option splits the IP packet into tiny fragments when used with -sS, -sF,
-sX or -sN. This makes it more difficult for a firewall or packet filter to determine
the packet type. Note that many modern packet filters and firewalls (including
iptables) feature optional defragmenters for such fragmented packets, and will
thus reassemble the packet to check its type before sending it on. Less complex
firewalls will not be able to cope with fragmented packets this small and will most
likely let the OS reassemble them and send them to the port they were intended
to reach. Using this option could crash some less stable software and hardware
since packet sizes get pretty small with this option!

12
12.6 Idle Scanning
See the section on -sI for information about idle scans.

13 OS Fingerprinting
The -O option turns on Nmaps OS fingerprinting system. Used alongside the
-v verbosity options, you can gain information about the remote operating sys-
tem and about its TCP Sequenmce Number generation (useful for planning Idle
scans).
An article on OS detection is available at http://www.insecure.org/nmap/
nmap-fingerprinting-article.html

14 Outputting Logs
Logging in Nmap can be provided by the -oN, -oX or -oG options. Each one
is followed by the name of the logfile. -oN outputs a human readable log, -oX
outputs an XML log and -oG outputs a grepable log. The -oA option outputs in
all 3 formats, and -oS outputs in a format Im sure none of you would ever want
to use (try it; youll see what I mean!)
The append-output option appends scan results to the output files you spec-
ified instead of overwriting their contents.

15 Other Nmap Options

15.1 IPv6
The -6 option enables IPv6 in Nmap (provided your OS has IPv6 support). Cur-
rently only TCP connect, and TCP connect ping scan are supported. For other
scantypes, see http://nmap6.sourceforge.net

15.2 Verbose Mode

Highly recommended, -v
Use -v twice for more verbosity. The option -d can also be used (once or
twice) to generate more verbose output.

15.3 Resuming
Scans cancelled with Ctrl+C can be resumed with the resume logfilename
option. The logfile must be a Normal or Grepable logfile (-oN or -oG).

13
 15.4 Reading Targets From A File
-iL inputfilename reads targets from inputfilename rather than from the command-
line.
The file should contain a hostlist or list of network expressions separated by
spaces, tabs or newlines. Using a hyphen as inputfile makes Nmap read from
standard input.

15.5 Fast Scan

The -F option scans only those ports listed in the nmap services file (or the
protocols file if the scan type is -sO). This is far faster than scanning all 65,535
ports!!

15.6 Time-To-Live
The -ttl value option sets the IPv4 packets time-to-live. The usefulness of this is
in mapping paths through networks and determining ACLs on firewalls (setting
the ttl to one past the packet filter can help to determine information about the
filtering rules themselves). Repeated Nmap scans to a single port using differing
ttl values will emulate a traceroute style network path map (Try it, its great
fun for a while, until you get bored and realise traceroute does it all for you
automatically!).

16 Typical Scanning Session

First, well sweep the network with a simple Ping scan to determine which hosts
are online.

1 [chaos]# nmap -sP 10.0.0.0/24

2
3 Starting Nmap 4.01 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ ) at
4 2006-07-14 14:19 BST
5 Host 10.0.0.1 appears to be up.
6 MAC Address: 00:09:5B:29:FD:96 (Netgear)
7 Host 10.0.0.2 appears to be up.
8 MAC Address: 00:0F:B5:96:38:5D (Netgear)
9 Host 10.0.0.4 appears to be up.
10 Host 10.0.0.5 appears to be up.
11 MAC Address: 00:14:2A:B1:1E:2E (Elitegroup Computer System Co.)
12 Nmap finished: 256 IP addresses (4 hosts up) scanned in 5.399 seconds

14
 Now were going to take a look at 10.0.0.1 and 10.0.0.2, both listed as Netgear
in the ping sweep. These IPs are good criteria for routers (in fact I know that
10.0.0.1 is a router and 10.0.0.2 is a wireless access point, since its my network,
but lets see what Nmap makes of it...)
Well scan 10.0.0.1 using a SYN scan [-sS] and -A to enable OS fingerprinting
and version detection.

1 [chaos]# nmap -sS -A 10.0.0.1

2
3 Starting Nmap 4.01 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ ) at
4 2006-07-14 14:23 BST
5 Insufficient responses for TCP sequencing (0),
6 OS detection may be less accurate
7 Interesting ports on 10.0.0.1:
8 (The 1671 ports scanned but not shown below are in state:
9 closed)
10 PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
11 80/tcp open tcpwrapped
12 MAC Address: 00:09:5B:29:FD:96 (Netgear)
13 Device type: WAP
14 Running: Compaq embedded, Netgear embedded
15 OS details: WAP: Compaq iPAQ Connection Point or
16 Netgear MR814
17
18 Nmap finished: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in
19 3.533 seconds

The only open port is 80/tcp - in this case, the web admin interface for the
router. OS fingerprinting guessed it was a Netgear Wireless Access Point - in fact
this is a Netgear (wired) ADSL router. As it said, though, there were insufficient
responses for TCP sequencing to accurately detect the OS.
Now well do the same for 10.0.0.2...

1 [chaos]# nmap -sS -A 10.0.0.2

2
3 Starting Nmap 4.01 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ )
4 at 2006-07-14 14:26 BST
5 Interesting ports on 10.0.0.2:
6 (The 1671 ports scanned but not shown below are in state:
7 closed)
8 PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
9 80/tcp open http Boa HTTPd 0.94.11
10 MAC Address: 00:0F:B5:96:38:5D (Netgear)

15
11 Device type: general purpose
12 Running: Linux 2.4.X|2.5.X
13 OS details: Linux 2.4.0 - 2.5.20
14 Uptime 14.141 days (since Fri Jun 30 11:03:05 2006)
15
16 Nmap finished: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 9.636
17 seconds

Interestingly, the OS detection here listed Linux, and the version detection
was able to detect the httpd running. The accuracy of this is uncertain, this
is a Netgear home wireless access point, so it could be running some embedded
Linux!
Now well move on to 10.0.0.4 and 10.0.0.5, these are likely to be normal
computers running on the network...

1 [chaos]# nmap -sS -P0 -A -v 10.0.0.4

2
3 Starting Nmap 4.01 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ ) at
4 2006-07-14 14:31 BST
5 DNS resolution of 1 IPs took 0.10s. Mode:
6 Async [#: 2, OK: 0, NX: 1, DR: 0, SF: 0, TR: 1, CN: 0]
7 Initiating SYN Stealth Scan against 10.0.0.4 [1672 ports] at 14:31
8 Discovered open port 21/tcp on 10.0.0.4
9 Discovered open port 22/tcp on 10.0.0.4
10 Discovered open port 631/tcp on 10.0.0.4
11 Discovered open port 6000/tcp on 10.0.0.4
12 The SYN Stealth Scan took 0.16s to scan 1672 total ports.
13 Initiating service scan against 4 services on 10.0.0.4 at 14:31
14 The service scan took 6.01s to scan 4 services on 1 host.
15 For OSScan assuming port 21 is open, 1 is closed, and neither are
16 firewalled
17 Host 10.0.0.4 appears to be up ... good.
18 Interesting ports on 10.0.0.4:
19 (The 1668 ports scanned but not shown below are in state: closed)
20 PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
21 21/tcp open ftp vsftpd 2.0.3
22 22/tcp open ssh OpenSSH 4.2 (protocol 1.99)
23 631/tcp open ipp CUPS 1.1
24 6000/tcp open X11 (access denied)
25 Device type: general purpose
26 Running: Linux 2.4.X|2.5.X|2.6.X
27 OS details: Linux 2.4.0 - 2.5.20, Linux 2.5.25 - 2.6.8 or
28 Gentoo 1.2 Linux 2.4.19 rc1-rc7

16
29 TCP Sequence Prediction: Class=random positive increments
30 Difficulty=4732564 (Good luck!)
31 IPID Sequence Generation: All zeros
32 Service Info: OS: Unix
33
34 Nmap finished: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 8.333 seconds
35 Raw packets sent: 1687 (74.7KB) | Rcvd: 3382 (143KB)

From this, we can deduce that 10.0.0.4 is a Linux system (in fact, the one Im
typing this tutorial on!) running a 2.4 to 2.6 kernel (Actually, Slackware Linux
10.2 on a 2.6.19.9 kernel) with open ports 21/tcp, 22/tcp, 631/tcp and 6000/tcp.
All but 6000 have version information listed. The scan found the IPID sequence
to be all zeros, which makes it useless for idle scanning, and the TCP Sequence
prediction as random positive integers. The -v option is needed to get Nmap to
print the IPID information out!
Now, onto 10.0.0.5...

1 [chaos]# nmap -sS -P0 -A -v 10.0.0.5

2
3 Starting Nmap 4.01 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ )
4 at 2006-07-14 14:35 BST
5 Initiating ARP Ping Scan against 10.0.0.5 [1 port] at 14:35
6 The ARP Ping Scan took 0.01s to scan 1 total hosts.
7 DNS resolution of 1 IPs took 0.02s. Mode: Async
8 [#: 2, OK: 0, NX: 1, DR: 0, SF: 0, TR: 1, CN: 0]
9 Initiating SYN Stealth Scan against 10.0.0.5 [1672 ports] at 14:35
10 The SYN Stealth Scan took 35.72s to scan 1672 total ports.
11 Warning: OS detection will be MUCH less reliable because we did
12 not find at least 1 open and 1 closed TCP port
13 Host 10.0.0.5 appears to be up ... good.
14 All 1672 scanned ports on 10.0.0.5 are: filtered
15 MAC Address: 00:14:2A:B1:1E:2E (Elitegroup Computer System Co.)
16 Too many fingerprints match this host to give specific OS details
17 TCP/IP fingerprint:
18 SInfo(V=4.01%P=i686-pc-linux-gnu%D=7/14%Tm=44B79DC6%O=-1%C=-1%M=00142A)
19 T5(Resp=N)
20 T6(Resp=N)
21 T7(Resp=N)
22 PU(Resp=N)
23
24 Nmap finished: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 43.855 seconds
25 Raw packets sent: 3369 (150KB) | Rcvd: 1 (42B)

17
 No open ports, and Nmap couldnt detect the OS. This suggests that it is
a firewalled or otherwise protected system, with no services running (and yet it
responded to ping sweeps).
We now have rather more information about this network than we did when
we started, and can guess at several other things based on these results. Using
that information, and the more advanced Nmap scans, we can obtain further scan
results which will help to plan an attack, or to fix weaknesses, in this network.

17 Frequently Asked Questions

This section was added as an extra to the original tutorial as it became popular
and some questions were asked about particular aspects of an nmap scan. Ill use
this part of the tutorial to merge some of those into the main tutorial itself.

17.1 I tried a scan and it appeared in firewall logs or

alerts. What else can I do to help hide my scan?
This question assumes you used a scan command along the lines of:

1 nmap -sS -P0 -p 1-140 -O -D xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx,

2 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -sV xxx.xx.xxx.xxx

Note: Each xxx corresponds to an octet of the IP address/addresses. This is

instructing NMAP to run a Stealth scan (-sS) without pinging (-P0) on ports 1
to 140 (-p 1-140), to use OS Detection (-O) and to use Decoys (-D). The three
comma-separated IPs are the decoy IPs to use. It also specifies to use version
scanning (-sV) which attempts to determine precisely which program is running
on a port.
Now, heres the analysis of this command: A stealth scan (-sS) is often picked
up by most firewalls and IDS systems nowdays. It was originally designed to
prevent logging of a scan in the logs for whatever server is running on the port
the scanner connects to. In other words, if the scan connects to port 80 to test
if its open, Apache (or whatever other webserver they may be using) will log the
connection in its logfiles.
The -sS scan option doesnt make a full TCP connect (which can be achieved
with the -sT option, or by not running as root) but resets the connection before
it can be fully established. As such, most servers will not log the connection, but
an IDS or firewall will recognise this behaviour (in repeated cases) as typical of
a port scan. This will mean that the scan shows up in firewall or IDS logs and
alerts. There are few ways around this, to be honest. Most firewall/IDS software
nowdays is quite good at detecting these things; particularly if its running on the
same host as the victim (the system you are scanning).

18
 Note also, that decoys will not prevent your IP showing entirely; it just lists
the others as well. A particularly well designed IDS may even be able to figure
out which is the real source of the scans.
Where speed of scan isnt essential, the -P0 option is a good idea. Nmap
gains timing information from pinging the host, and can often complete its scans
faster with this information, but the ping packets will be sent to the victim from
your IP, and any IDS worth its CPU cycles will pick up on the pattern of a
few pings followed by connects to a variety of ports. -P0 also allows scanning of
hosts which do not respond to pings (i.e. if ICMP is blocked by a firewall or by
in-kernel settings).
I mentioned timing in the above paragraph. You can use the -T timing option
to slow the scan down. The slower a scan is, the less likely it is to be detected by
an IDS. There are bound to be occasional random connects occurring, people type
an IP in wrong or try to connect and their computer crashes half way through
the connect. These things happen, and unless an IDS is configured extremely
strictly, they generally arent reported (at least, not in the main alert logs, they
may be logged if logging of all traffic is enabled, but typically these kind of logs
are only checked if theres evidence of something going on). Setting the timing to
-T 0 or -T 1 (Paranoid or Sneaky) should help avoid detection. As mentioned in
my main tutorial, you can also set timing options for each aspect of a scan,

Timings for individual aspects of a scan can also be set using the
host timeout, max rtt timeout, min rtt timeout, initial rtt timeout,
max parallelism, min parallelism, and scan delay options. See the
Nmap manual for details.

The final note I will add to this answer is that use of the Idle scan method
(-sI) means that not a single packet is sent to the victim from your IP (provided
you also use the -P0 option to turn off pings). This is the ultimate in stealth as
there is absolutely no way the victim can determine that your IP is responsible
for the scan (short of obtaining log information from the host you used as part
of your idle scan).

17.2 NMAP seems to have stopped, or my scan is taking

a very long while. Why is this?
The timing options can make it take a very long time. I believe the -T Paranoid
( -T 0 )option waits up to 5 minutes between packets... now, for 65000 ports,
thats 65000 x 5 = 325000 minutes = 225 days!!
-T Sneaky ( -T 1 ) waits up to 15 seconds between scans, and is therefore
more useful; but scans will still take a long while! You can use -v to get more
verbose output, which will alert you as to the progress of the scan. Using -v twice
makes the output even more verbose.

19
17.3 Will -sN -sX and -sF work against any host, or just
Windows hosts?
-sN -sX and -sF scans will work against any host, but Windows computers do
not respond correctly to them, so scanning a Windows machine with these scans
results in all ports appearing closed. Scanning a *nix or other system should work
just fine, though. As I said in the main tutorial, -sX -sF and -sN are commonly
used to determine if youre scanning a Windows host or not, without using the
-O fingerprinting option.
The Nmap manual page should help to determine which scans work alongside
which options, and on which target systems they are most effective.

17.4 How do I find a dummy host for the Idle Scan (-sI)?
You simply have to scan for hosts using sequential IPID sequences, these are
(often) suitable for use as a dummy host for the -sI Idle Scan.

17.5 What does Host seems down. If it is really up, but

blocking our ping probes, try -P0 mean?
When Nmap starts, it tries to ping the host to check that it is online. Nmap also
gains timing information from this ping. If the remote host, or a system on the
path between you and the remote host, is blocking pings, this ping will not be
replied to, and Nmap will not start scanning. Using the -P0 option, you can turn
off ping-on-start and have Nmap try to scan anyway.

17.6 Where can I find NmapFE?

NmapFE is a graphical front-end for Nmap.
NmapFE for UNIX/Linux is included in the Nmap source. NmapFE for OSX
is available at http://faktory.org/m/software/nmap/ NmapFE for Windows
is under development as part of NmapFE++, a new frontend for Linux, OSX
and Windows. Information is available at http://www.insecure.org/nmap/
SoC/NmapFE.html

18 About This Document

This document is copyright 2003-2006,
c Andrew J. Bennieston. This document
is provided in several formats, including LaTeX source, and it may be freely
redistributed in any form, providing no changes are made to the content. The
latest version can always be found at http://www.nmap-tutorial.com

20