NMAP(1) Nmap Reference Guide NMAP(1)

NAME
nmap − Network exploration tool and security / port scanner
SYNOPSIS
nmap [Scan Type...] [Options] {target specification}
DESCRIPTION
Nmap (“Network Mapper”) is an open source tool for network exploration and security auditing. It was
designed to rapidly scan large networks, although it works fine against single hosts. Nmap uses raw IP
packets in novel ways to determine what hosts are available on the network, what services (application
name and version) those hosts are offering, what operating systems (and OS versions) they are running,
what type of packet filters/firewalls are in use, and dozens of other characteristics. While Nmap is
commonly used for security audits, many systems and network administrators find it useful for routine tasks
such as network inventory, managing service upgrade schedules, and monitoring host or service uptime.
The output from Nmap is a list of scanned targets, with supplemental information on each depending on the
options used. Key among that information is the “interesting ports table”. That table lists the port number
and protocol, service name, and state. The state is either open, filtered, closed, or unfiltered. Open means
that an application on the target machine is listening for connections/packets on that port. Filtered means
that a firewall, filter, or other network obstacle is blocking the port so that Nmap cannot tell whether it is
open or closed. Closed ports have no application listening on them, though they could open up at any time.
Ports are classified as unfiltered when they are responsive to Nmap's probes, but Nmap cannot determine
whether they are open or closed. Nmap reports the state combinations open|filtered and closed|filtered when
it cannot determine which of the two states describe a port. The port table may also include software
version details when version detection has been requested. When an IP protocol scan is requested (−sO),
Nmap provides information on supported IP protocols rather than listening ports.
In addition to the interesting ports table, Nmap can provide further information on targets, including reverse
DNS names, operating system guesses, device types, and MAC addresses.
A typical Nmap scan is shown in Example 1. The only Nmap arguments used in this example are −A, to
enable OS and version detection, script scanning, and traceroute; −T4 for faster execution; and then the
hostname.
Example 1. A representative Nmap scan

# nmap −A −T4 scanme.nmap.org

Nmap scan report for scanme.nmap.org (74.207.244.221)

Host is up (0.029s latency).
rDNS record for 74.207.244.221: li86−221.members.linode.com
Not shown: 995 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
22/tcp open ssh OpenSSH 5.3p1 Debian 3ubuntu7 (protocol 2.0)
| ssh−hostkey: 1024 8d:60:f1:7c:ca:b7:3d:0a:d6:67:54:9d:69:d9:b9:dd (DSA)
|_2048 79:f8:09:ac:d4:e2:32:42:10:49:d3:bd:20:82:85:ec (RSA)
80/tcp open http Apache httpd 2.2.14 ((Ubuntu))
|_http−title: Go ahead and ScanMe!
646/tcp filtered ldp
1720/tcp filtered H.323/Q.931
9929/tcp open nping−echo Nping echo
Device type: general purpose
Running: Linux 2.6.X
OS CPE: cpe:/o:linux:linux_kernel:2.6.39
OS details: Linux 2.6.39
Network Distance: 11 hops
Service Info: OS: Linux; CPE: cpe:/o:linux:kernel

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TRACEROUTE (using port 53/tcp)

HOP RTT ADDRESS
[Cut first 10 hops for brevity]
11 17.65 ms li86−221.members.linode.com (74.207.244.221)

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 14.40 seconds

The newest version of Nmap can be obtained from https://nmap.org. The newest version of this man page
is available at https://nmap.org/book/man.html. It is also included as a chapter of Nmap Network
Scanning: The Official Nmap Project Guide to Network Discovery and Security Scanning (see
https://nmap.org/book/).
OPTIONS SUMMARY
This options summary is printed when Nmap is run with no arguments, and the latest version is always
available at https://svn.nmap.org/nmap/docs/nmap.usage.txt. It helps people remember the most
common options, but is no substitute for the in−depth documentation in the rest of this manual. Some
obscure options aren't even included here.

Nmap 7.70SVN ( https://nmap.org )

Usage: nmap [Scan Type(s)] [Options] {target specification}
TARGET SPECIFICATION:
Can pass hostnames, IP addresses, networks, etc.
Ex: scanme.nmap.org, microsoft.com/24, 192.168.0.1; 10.0.0−255.1−254
−iL <inputfilename>: Input from list of hosts/networks
−iR <num hosts>: Choose random targets
−−exclude <host1[,host2][,host3],...>: Exclude hosts/networks
−−excludefile <exclude_file>: Exclude list from file
HOST DISCOVERY:
−sL: List Scan − simply list targets to scan
−sn: Ping Scan − disable port scan
−Pn: Treat all hosts as online −− skip host discovery
−PS/PA/PU/PY[portlist]: TCP SYN/ACK, UDP or SCTP discovery to given ports
−PE/PP/PM: ICMP echo, timestamp, and netmask request discovery probes
−PO[protocol list]: IP Protocol Ping
−n/−R: Never do DNS resolution/Always resolve [default: sometimes]
−−dns−servers <serv1[,serv2],...>: Specify custom DNS servers
−−system−dns: Use OS's DNS resolver
−−traceroute: Trace hop path to each host
SCAN TECHNIQUES:
−sS/sT/sA/sW/sM: TCP SYN/Connect()/ACK/Window/Maimon scans
−sU: UDP Scan
−sN/sF/sX: TCP Null, FIN, and Xmas scans
−−scanflags <flags>: Customize TCP scan flags
−sI <zombie host[:probeport]>: Idle scan
−sY/sZ: SCTP INIT/COOKIE−ECHO scans
−sO: IP protocol scan
−b <FTP relay host>: FTP bounce scan
PORT SPECIFICATION AND SCAN ORDER:
−p <port ranges>: Only scan specified ports
Ex: −p22; −p1−65535; −p U:53,111,137,T:21−25,80,139,8080,S:9
−−exclude−ports <port ranges>: Exclude the specified ports from scanning
−F: Fast mode − Scan fewer ports than the default scan
−r: Scan ports consecutively − don't randomize
−−top−ports <number>: Scan <number> most common ports
−−port−ratio <ratio>: Scan ports more common than <ratio>
SERVICE/VERSION DETECTION:

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−sV: Probe open ports to determine service/version info

−−version−intensity <level>: Set from 0 (light) to 9 (try all probes)
−−version−light: Limit to most likely probes (intensity 2)
−−version−all: Try every single probe (intensity 9)
−−version−trace: Show detailed version scan activity (for debugging)
SCRIPT SCAN:
−sC: equivalent to −−script=default
−−script=<Lua scripts>: <Lua scripts> is a comma separated list of
directories, script−files or script−categories
−−script−args=<n1=v1,[n2=v2,...]>: provide arguments to scripts
−−script−args−file=filename: provide NSE script args in a file
−−script−trace: Show all data sent and received
−−script−updatedb: Update the script database.
−−script−help=<Lua scripts>: Show help about scripts.
<Lua scripts> is a comma−separated list of script−files or
script−categories.
OS DETECTION:
−O: Enable OS detection
−−osscan−limit: Limit OS detection to promising targets
−−osscan−guess: Guess OS more aggressively
TIMING AND PERFORMANCE:
Options which take <time> are in seconds, or append 'ms' (milliseconds),
's' (seconds), 'm' (minutes), or 'h' (hours) to the value (e.g. 30m).
−T<0−5>: Set timing template (higher is faster)
−−min−hostgroup/max−hostgroup <size>: Parallel host scan group sizes
−−min−parallelism/max−parallelism <numprobes>: Probe parallelization
−−min−rtt−timeout/max−rtt−timeout/initial−rtt−timeout <time>: Specifies
probe round trip time.
−−max−retries <tries>: Caps number of port scan probe retransmissions.
−−host−timeout <time>: Give up on target after this long
−−scan−delay/−−max−scan−delay <time>: Adjust delay between probes
−−min−rate <number>: Send packets no slower than <number> per second
−−max−rate <number>: Send packets no faster than <number> per second
FIREWALL/IDS EVASION AND SPOOFING:
−f; −−mtu <val>: fragment packets (optionally w/given MTU)
−D <decoy1,decoy2[,ME],...>: Cloak a scan with decoys
−S <IP_Address>: Spoof source address
−e <iface>: Use specified interface
−g/−−source−port <portnum>: Use given port number
−−proxies <url1,[url2],...>: Relay connections through HTTP/SOCKS4 proxies
−−data <hex string>: Append a custom payload to sent packets
−−data−string <string>: Append a custom ASCII string to sent packets
−−data−length <num>: Append random data to sent packets
−−ip−options <options>: Send packets with specified ip options
−−ttl <val>: Set IP time−to−live field
−−spoof−mac <mac address/prefix/vendor name>: Spoof your MAC address
−−badsum: Send packets with a bogus TCP/UDP/SCTP checksum
OUTPUT:
−oN/−oX/−oS/−oG <file>: Output scan in normal, XML, s|<rIpt kIddi3,
and Grepable format, respectively, to the given filename.
−oA <basename>: Output in the three major formats at once
−v: Increase verbosity level (use −vv or more for greater effect)
−d: Increase debugging level (use −dd or more for greater effect)
−−reason: Display the reason a port is in a particular state

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−−open: Only show open (or possibly open) ports

−−packet−trace: Show all packets sent and received
−−iflist: Print host interfaces and routes (for debugging)
−−append−output: Append to rather than clobber specified output files
−−resume <filename>: Resume an aborted scan
−−stylesheet <path/URL>: XSL stylesheet to transform XML output to HTML
−−webxml: Reference stylesheet from Nmap.Org for more portable XML
−−no−stylesheet: Prevent associating of XSL stylesheet w/XML output
MISC:
−6: Enable IPv6 scanning
−A: Enable OS detection, version detection, script scanning, and traceroute
−−datadir <dirname>: Specify custom Nmap data file location
−−send−eth/−−send−ip: Send using raw ethernet frames or IP packets
−−privileged: Assume that the user is fully privileged
−−unprivileged: Assume the user lacks raw socket privileges
−V: Print version number
−h: Print this help summary page.
EXAMPLES:
nmap −v −A scanme.nmap.org
nmap −v −sn 192.168.0.0/16 10.0.0.0/8
nmap −v −iR 10000 −Pn −p 80
SEE THE MAN PAGE (https://nmap.org/book/man.html) FOR MORE OPTIONS AND EXAMPLES
TARGET SPECIFICATION
Everything on the Nmap command−line that isn't an option (or option argument) is treated as a target host
specification. The simplest case is to specify a target IP address or hostname for scanning.
When a hostname is given as a target, it is resolved via the Domain Name System (DNS) to determine the
IP address to scan. If the name resolves to more than one IP address, only the first one will be scanned. To
make Nmap scan all the resolved addresses instead of only the first one, use the −−resolve−all option.
Sometimes you wish to scan a whole network of adjacent hosts. For this, Nmap supports CIDR−style
addressing. You can append /numbits to an IP address or hostname and Nmap will scan every IP address for
which the first numbits are the same as for the reference IP or hostname given. For example,
192.168.10.0/24 would scan the 256 hosts between 192.168.10.0 (binary: 11000000 10101000 00001010
00000000) and 192.168.10.255 (binary: 11000000 10101000 00001010 11111111), inclusive.
192.168.10.40/24 would scan exactly the same targets. Given that the host scanme.nmap.org is at the IP
address 64.13.134.52, the specification scanme.nmap.org/16 would scan the 65,536 IP addresses between
64.13.0.0 and 64.13.255.255. The smallest allowed value is /0, which targets the whole Internet. The largest
value for IPv4 is /32, which scans just the named host or IP address because all address bits are fixed. The
largest value for IPv6 is /128, which does the same thing.
CIDR notation is short but not always flexible enough. For example, you might want to scan 192.168.0.0/16
but skip any IPs ending with .0 or .255 because they may be used as subnet network and broadcast
addresses. Nmap supports this through octet range addressing. Rather than specify a normal IP address, you
can specify a comma−separated list of numbers or ranges for each octet. For example,
192.168.0−255.1−254 will skip all addresses in the range that end in .0 or .255, and 192.168.3−5,7.1 will
scan the four addresses 192.168.3.1, 192.168.4.1, 192.168.5.1, and 192.168.7.1. Either side of a range may
be omitted; the default values are 0 on the left and 255 on the right. Using − by itself is the same as 0−255,
but remember to use 0− in the first octet so the target specification doesn't look like a command−line
option. Ranges need not be limited to the final octets: the specifier 0−255.0−255.13.37 will perform an
Internet−wide scan for all IP addresses ending in 13.37. This sort of broad sampling can be useful for
Internet surveys and research.
IPv6 addresses can be specified by their fully qualified IPv6 address or hostname or with CIDR notation for
subnets. Octet ranges aren't yet supported for IPv6.
IPv6 addresses with non−global scope need to have a zone ID suffix. On Unix systems, this is a percent

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sign followed by an interface name; a complete address might be fe80::a8bb:ccff:fedd:eeff%eth0. On

Windows, use an interface index number in place of an interface name: fe80::a8bb:ccff:fedd:eeff%1. You
can see a list of interface indexes by running the command netsh.exe interface ipv6 show interface.
Nmap accepts multiple host specifications on the command line, and they don't need to be the same type.
The command nmap scanme.nmap.org 192.168.0.0/8 10.0.0,1,3−7.− does what you would expect.
While targets are usually specified on the command lines, the following options are also available to control
target selection:
−iL inputfilename (Input from list)
Reads target specifications from inputfilename. Passing a huge list of hosts is often awkward on the
command line, yet it is a common desire. For example, your DHCP server might export a list of
10,000 current leases that you wish to scan. Or maybe you want to scan all IP addresses except for
those to locate hosts using unauthorized static IP addresses. Simply generate the list of hosts to scan
and pass that filename to Nmap as an argument to the −iL option. Entries can be in any of the formats
accepted by Nmap on the command line (IP address, hostname, CIDR, IPv6, or octet ranges). Each
entry must be separated by one or more spaces, tabs, or newlines. You can specify a hyphen (−) as the
filename if you want Nmap to read hosts from standard input rather than an actual file.

The input file may contain comments that start with # and extend to the end of the line.
−iR num hosts (Choose random targets)
For Internet−wide surveys and other research, you may want to choose targets at random. The num
hosts argument tells Nmap how many IPs to generate. Undesirable IPs such as those in certain private,
multicast, or unallocated address ranges are automatically skipped. The argument 0 can be specified
for a never−ending scan. Keep in mind that some network administrators bristle at unauthorized scans
of their networks and may complain. Use this option at your own risk! If you find yourself really bored
one rainy afternoon, try the command nmap −Pn −sS −p 80 −iR 0 −−open to locate random web
servers for browsing.
−−exclude host1[,host2[,...]] (Exclude hosts/networks)
Specifies a comma−separated list of targets to be excluded from the scan even if they are part of the
overall network range you specify. The list you pass in uses normal Nmap syntax, so it can include
hostnames, CIDR netblocks, octet ranges, etc. This can be useful when the network you wish to scan
includes untouchable mission−critical servers, systems that are known to react adversely to port scans,
or subnets administered by other people.
−−excludefile exclude_file (Exclude list from file)
This offers the same functionality as the −−exclude option, except that the excluded targets are
provided in a newline−, space−, or tab−delimited exclude_file rather than on the command line.

The exclude file may contain comments that start with # and extend to the end of the line.
HOST DISCOVERY
One of the very first steps in any network reconnaissance mission is to reduce a (sometimes huge) set of IP
ranges into a list of active or interesting hosts. Scanning every port of every single IP address is slow and
usually unnecessary. Of course what makes a host interesting depends greatly on the scan purposes.
Network administrators may only be interested in hosts running a certain service, while security auditors
may care about every single device with an IP address. An administrator may be comfortable using just an
ICMP ping to locate hosts on his internal network, while an external penetration tester may use a diverse set
of dozens of probes in an attempt to evade firewall restrictions.
Because host discovery needs are so diverse, Nmap offers a wide variety of options for customizing the
techniques used. Host discovery is sometimes called ping scan, but it goes well beyond the simple ICMP
echo request packets associated with the ubiquitous ping tool. Users can skip the ping step entirely with a
list scan (−sL) or by disabling ping (−Pn), or engage the network with arbitrary combinations of multi−port
TCP SYN/ACK, UDP, SCTP INIT and ICMP probes. The goal of these probes is to solicit responses which
demonstrate that an IP address is actually active (is being used by a host or network device). On many

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networks, only a small percentage of IP addresses are active at any given time. This is particularly common
with private address space such as 10.0.0.0/8. That network has 16 million IPs, but I have seen it used by
companies with less than a thousand machines. Host discovery can find those machines in a sparsely
allocated sea of IP addresses.
If no host discovery options are given, Nmap sends an ICMP echo request, a TCP SYN packet to port 443,
a TCP ACK packet to port 80, and an ICMP timestamp request. (For IPv6, the ICMP timestamp request is
omitted because it is not part of ICMPv6.) These defaults are equivalent to the −PE −PS443 −PA80 −PP
options. The exceptions to this are the ARP (for IPv4) and Neighbor Discovery (for IPv6) scans which are
used for any targets on a local ethernet network. For unprivileged Unix shell users, the default probes are a
SYN packet to ports 80 and 443 using the connect system call. This host discovery is often sufficient when
scanning local networks, but a more comprehensive set of discovery probes is recommended for security
auditing.
The −P* options (which select ping types) can be combined. You can increase your odds of penetrating
strict firewalls by sending many probe types using different TCP ports/flags and ICMP codes. Also note
that ARP/Neighbor Discovery (−PR) is done by default against targets on a local ethernet network even if
you specify other −P* options, because it is almost always faster and more effective.
By default, Nmap does host discovery and then performs a port scan against each host it determines is
online. This is true even if you specify non−default host discovery types such as UDP probes (−PU). Read
about the −sn option to learn how to perform only host discovery, or use −Pn to skip host discovery and
port scan all target hosts. The following options control host discovery:
−sL (List Scan)
The list scan is a degenerate form of host discovery that simply lists each host of the network(s)
specified, without sending any packets to the target hosts. By default, Nmap still does reverse−DNS
resolution on the hosts to learn their names. It is often surprising how much useful information simple
hostnames give out. For example, fw.chi is the name of one company's Chicago firewall.

Nmap also reports the total number of IP addresses at the end. The list scan is a good sanity check to
ensure that you have proper IP addresses for your targets. If the hosts sport domain names you do not
recognize, it is worth investigating further to prevent scanning the wrong company's network.

Since the idea is to simply print a list of target hosts, options for higher level functionality such as port
scanning, OS detection, or ping scanning cannot be combined with this. If you wish to disable ping
scanning while still performing such higher level functionality, read up on the −Pn (skip ping) option.
−sn (No port scan)
This option tells Nmap not to do a port scan after host discovery, and only print out the available hosts
that responded to the host discovery probes. This is often known as a “ping scan”, but you can also
request that traceroute and NSE host scripts be run. This is by default one step more intrusive than the
list scan, and can often be used for the same purposes. It allows light reconnaissance of a target
network without attracting much attention. Knowing how many hosts are up is more valuable to
attackers than the list provided by list scan of every single IP and host name.

Systems administrators often find this option valuable as well. It can easily be used to count available
machines on a network or monitor server availability. This is often called a ping sweep, and is more
reliable than pinging the broadcast address because many hosts do not reply to broadcast queries.

The default host discovery done with −sn consists of an ICMP echo request, TCP SYN to port 443,
TCP ACK to port 80, and an ICMP timestamp request by default. When executed by an unprivileged
user, only SYN packets are sent (using a connect call) to ports 80 and 443 on the target. When a
privileged user tries to scan targets on a local ethernet network, ARP requests are used unless
−−send−ip was specified. The −sn option can be combined with any of the discovery probe types (the
−P* options, excluding −Pn) for greater flexibility. If any of those probe type and port number options
are used, the default probes are overridden. When strict firewalls are in place between the source host

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running Nmap and the target network, using those advanced techniques is recommended. Otherwise
hosts could be missed when the firewall drops probes or their responses.

In previous releases of Nmap, −sn was known as −sP.

−Pn (No ping)
This option skips the Nmap discovery stage altogether. Normally, Nmap uses this stage to determine
active machines for heavier scanning. By default, Nmap only performs heavy probing such as port
scans, version detection, or OS detection against hosts that are found to be up. Disabling host
discovery with −Pn causes Nmap to attempt the requested scanning functions against every target IP
address specified. So if a class B target address space (/16) is specified on the command line, all
65,536 IP addresses are scanned. Proper host discovery is skipped as with the list scan, but instead of
stopping and printing the target list, Nmap continues to perform requested functions as if each target
IP is active. To skip ping scan and port scan, while still allowing NSE to run, use the two options −Pn
−sn together.

For machines on a local ethernet network, ARP scanning will still be performed (unless
−−disable−arp−ping or −−send−ip is specified) because Nmap needs MAC addresses to further scan
target hosts. In previous versions of Nmap, −Pn was −P0 and −PN.
−PS port list (TCP SYN Ping)
This option sends an empty TCP packet with the SYN flag set. The default destination port is 80
(configurable at compile time by changing DEFAULT_TCP_PROBE_PORT_SPEC in nmap.h).
Alternate ports can be specified as a parameter. The syntax is the same as for the −p except that port
type specifiers like T: are not allowed. Examples are −PS22 and −PS22−25,80,113,1050,35000. Note
that there can be no space between −PS and the port list. If multiple probes are specified they will be
sent in parallel.

The SYN flag suggests to the remote system that you are attempting to establish a connection.
Normally the destination port will be closed, and a RST (reset) packet sent back. If the port happens to
be open, the target will take the second step of a TCP three−way−handshake by responding with a
SYN/ACK TCP packet. The machine running Nmap then tears down the nascent connection by
responding with a RST rather than sending an ACK packet which would complete the
three−way−handshake and establish a full connection. The RST packet is sent by the kernel of the
machine running Nmap in response to the unexpected SYN/ACK, not by Nmap itself.

Nmap does not care whether the port is open or closed. Either the RST or SYN/ACK response
discussed previously tell Nmap that the host is available and responsive.

On Unix boxes, only the privileged user root is generally able to send and receive raw TCP packets.
For unprivileged users, a workaround is automatically employed whereby the connect system call is
initiated against each target port. This has the effect of sending a SYN packet to the target host, in an
attempt to establish a connection. If connect returns with a quick success or an ECONNREFUSED
failure, the underlying TCP stack must have received a SYN/ACK or RST and the host is marked
available. If the connection attempt is left hanging until a timeout is reached, the host is marked as
down.
−PA port list (TCP ACK Ping)
The TCP ACK ping is quite similar to the just−discussed SYN ping. The difference, as you could
likely guess, is that the TCP ACK flag is set instead of the SYN flag. Such an ACK packet purports to
be acknowledging data over an established TCP connection, but no such connection exists. So remote
hosts should always respond with a RST packet, disclosing their existence in the process.

The −PA option uses the same default port as the SYN probe (80) and can also take a list of
destination ports in the same format. If an unprivileged user tries this, the connect workaround
discussed previously is used. This workaround is imperfect because connect is actually sending a

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SYN packet rather than an ACK.

The reason for offering both SYN and ACK ping probes is to maximize the chances of bypassing
firewalls. Many administrators configure routers and other simple firewalls to block incoming SYN
packets except for those destined for public services like the company web site or mail server. This
prevents other incoming connections to the organization, while allowing users to make unobstructed
outgoing connections to the Internet. This non−stateful approach takes up few resources on the
firewall/router and is widely supported by hardware and software filters. The Linux Netfilter/iptables
firewall software offers the −−syn convenience option to implement this stateless approach. When
stateless firewall rules such as this are in place, SYN ping probes (−PS) are likely to be blocked when
sent to closed target ports. In such cases, the ACK probe shines as it cuts right through these rules.

Another common type of firewall uses stateful rules that drop unexpected packets. This feature was
initially found mostly on high−end firewalls, though it has become much more common over the
years. The Linux Netfilter/iptables system supports this through the −−state option, which categorizes
packets based on connection state. A SYN probe is more likely to work against such a system, as
unexpected ACK packets are generally recognized as bogus and dropped. A solution to this quandary
is to send both SYN and ACK probes by specifying −PS and −PA.
−PU port list (UDP Ping)
Another host discovery option is the UDP ping, which sends a UDP packet to the given ports. For
most ports, the packet will be empty, though some use a protocol−specific payload that is more likely
to elicit a response. The payload database is described at
https://nmap.org/book/nmap-payloads.html.

. Packet content can also be affected with the −−data, −−data−string, and −−data−length options.

The port list takes the same format as with the previously discussed −PS and −PA options. If no ports
are specified, the default is 40125. This default can be configured at compile−time by changing
DEFAULT_UDP_PROBE_PORT_SPEC in nmap.h. A highly uncommon port is used by default
because sending to open ports is often undesirable for this particular scan type.

Upon hitting a closed port on the target machine, the UDP probe should elicit an ICMP port
unreachable packet in return. This signifies to Nmap that the machine is up and available. Many other
types of ICMP errors, such as host/network unreachables or TTL exceeded are indicative of a down or
unreachable host. A lack of response is also interpreted this way. If an open port is reached, most
services simply ignore the empty packet and fail to return any response. This is why the default probe
port is 40125, which is highly unlikely to be in use. A few services, such as the Character Generator
(chargen) protocol, will respond to an empty UDP packet, and thus disclose to Nmap that the machine
is available.

The primary advantage of this scan type is that it bypasses firewalls and filters that only screen TCP.
For example, I once owned a Linksys BEFW11S4 wireless broadband router. The external interface of
this device filtered all TCP ports by default, but UDP probes would still elicit port unreachable
messages and thus give away the device.
−PY port list (SCTP INIT Ping)
This option sends an SCTP packet containing a minimal INIT chunk. The default destination port is 80
(configurable at compile time by changing DEFAULT_SCTP_PROBE_PORT_SPEC in nmap.h).
Alternate ports can be specified as a parameter. The syntax is the same as for the −p except that port
type specifiers like S: are not allowed. Examples are −PY22 and −PY22,80,179,5060. Note that there
can be no space between −PY and the port list. If multiple probes are specified they will be sent in
parallel.

The INIT chunk suggests to the remote system that you are attempting to establish an association.
Normally the destination port will be closed, and an ABORT chunk will be sent back. If the port

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happens to be open, the target will take the second step of an SCTP four−way−handshake by
responding with an INIT−ACK chunk. If the machine running Nmap has a functional SCTP stack,
then it tears down the nascent association by responding with an ABORT chunk rather than sending a
COOKIE−ECHO chunk which would be the next step in the four−way−handshake. The ABORT
packet is sent by the kernel of the machine running Nmap in response to the unexpected INIT−ACK,
not by Nmap itself.

Nmap does not care whether the port is open or closed. Either the ABORT or INIT−ACK response
discussed previously tell Nmap that the host is available and responsive.

On Unix boxes, only the privileged user root is generally able to send and receive raw SCTP packets.
Using SCTP INIT Pings is currently not possible for unprivileged users.
−PE; −PP; −PM (ICMP Ping Types)
In addition to the unusual TCP, UDP and SCTP host discovery types discussed previously, Nmap can
send the standard packets sent by the ubiquitous ping program. Nmap sends an ICMP type 8 (echo
request) packet to the target IP addresses, expecting a type 0 (echo reply) in return from available
hosts. Unfortunately for network explorers, many hosts and firewalls now block these packets, rather
than responding as required by RFC 1122[2]. For this reason, ICMP−only scans are rarely reliable
enough against unknown targets over the Internet. But for system administrators monitoring an
internal network, they can be a practical and efficient approach. Use the −PE option to enable this
echo request behavior.

While echo request is the standard ICMP ping query, Nmap does not stop there. The ICMP standards
(RFC 792[3] and RFC 950[4] ) also specify timestamp request, information request, and address mask
request packets as codes 13, 15, and 17, respectively. While the ostensible purpose for these queries is
to learn information such as address masks and current times, they can easily be used for host
discovery. A system that replies is up and available. Nmap does not currently implement information
request packets, as they are not widely supported. RFC 1122 insists that “a host SHOULD NOT
implement these messages”. Timestamp and address mask queries can be sent with the −PP and −PM
options, respectively. A timestamp reply (ICMP code 14) or address mask reply (code 18) discloses
that the host is available. These two queries can be valuable when administrators specifically block
echo request packets while forgetting that other ICMP queries can be used for the same purpose.
−PO protocol list (IP Protocol Ping)
One of the newer host discovery options is the IP protocol ping, which sends IP packets with the
specified protocol number set in their IP header. The protocol list takes the same format as do port lists
in the previously discussed TCP, UDP and SCTP host discovery options. If no protocols are specified,
the default is to send multiple IP packets for ICMP (protocol 1), IGMP (protocol 2), and IP−in−IP
(protocol 4). The default protocols can be configured at compile−time by changing
DEFAULT_PROTO_PROBE_PORT_SPEC in nmap.h. Note that for the ICMP, IGMP, TCP (protocol
6), UDP (protocol 17) and SCTP (protocol 132), the packets are sent with the proper protocol headers
while other protocols are sent with no additional data beyond the IP header (unless any of −−data,
−−data−string, or −−data−length options are specified).

This host discovery method looks for either responses using the same protocol as a probe, or ICMP
protocol unreachable messages which signify that the given protocol isn't supported on the destination
host. Either type of response signifies that the target host is alive.
−PR (ARP Ping)
One of the most common Nmap usage scenarios is to scan an ethernet LAN. On most LANs,
especially those using private address ranges specified by RFC 1918[5], the vast majority of IP
addresses are unused at any given time. When Nmap tries to send a raw IP packet such as an ICMP
echo request, the operating system must determine the destination hardware (ARP) address
corresponding to the target IP so that it can properly address the ethernet frame. This is often slow and
problematic, since operating systems weren't written with the expectation that they would need to do

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millions of ARP requests against unavailable hosts in a short time period.

ARP scan puts Nmap and its optimized algorithms in charge of ARP requests. And if it gets a response
back, Nmap doesn't even need to worry about the IP−based ping packets since it already knows the
host is up. This makes ARP scan much faster and more reliable than IP−based scans. So it is done by
default when scanning ethernet hosts that Nmap detects are on a local ethernet network. Even if
different ping types (such as −PE or −PS) are specified, Nmap uses ARP instead for any of the targets
which are on the same LAN. If you absolutely don't want to do an ARP scan, specify
−−disable−arp−ping.

For IPv6 (−6 option), −PR uses ICMPv6 Neighbor Discovery instead of ARP. Neighbor Discovery,
defined in RFC 4861, can be seen as the IPv6 equivalent of ARP.
−−disable−arp−ping (No ARP or ND Ping)
Nmap normally does ARP or IPv6 Neighbor Discovery (ND) discovery of locally connected ethernet
hosts, even if other host discovery options such as −Pn or −PE are used. To disable this implicit
behavior, use the −−disable−arp−ping option.

The default behavior is normally faster, but this option is useful on networks using proxy ARP, in
which a router speculatively replies to all ARP requests, making every target appear to be up according
to ARP scan.
−−traceroute (Trace path to host)
Traceroutes are performed post−scan using information from the scan results to determine the port and
protocol most likely to reach the target. It works with all scan types except connect scans (−sT) and
idle scans (−sI). All traces use Nmap's dynamic timing model and are performed in parallel.

Traceroute works by sending packets with a low TTL (time−to−live) in an attempt to elicit ICMP Time
Exceeded messages from intermediate hops between the scanner and the target host. Standard
traceroute implementations start with a TTL of 1 and increment the TTL until the destination host is
reached. Nmap's traceroute starts with a high TTL and then decrements the TTL until it reaches zero.
Doing it backwards lets Nmap employ clever caching algorithms to speed up traces over multiple
hosts. On average Nmap sends 5–10 fewer packets per host, depending on network conditions. If a
single subnet is being scanned (i.e. 192.168.0.0/24) Nmap may only have to send two packets to most
hosts.
−n (No DNS resolution)
Tells Nmap to never do reverse DNS

resolution on the active IP addresses it finds. Since DNS can be slow even with Nmap's built−in
parallel stub resolver, this option can slash scanning times.
−R (DNS resolution for all targets)
Tells Nmap to always do reverse DNS resolution on the target IP addresses. Normally reverse DNS is
only performed against responsive (online) hosts.
−−resolve−all (Scan each resolved address)
If a hostname target resolves to more than one address, scan all of them. The default behavior is to
only scan the first resolved address. Regardless, only addresses in the appropriate address family will
be scanned: IPv4 by default, IPv6 with −6.
−−system−dns (Use system DNS resolver)
By default, Nmap reverse−resolves IP addresses by sending queries directly to the name servers
configured on your host and then listening for responses. Many requests (often dozens) are performed
in parallel to improve performance. Specify this option to use your system resolver instead (one IP at a
time via the getnameinfo call). This is slower and rarely useful unless you find a bug in the Nmap
parallel resolver (please let us know if you do). The system resolver is always used for forward
lookups (getting an IP address from a hostname).

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−−dns−servers server1[,server2[,...]] (Servers to use for reverse DNS queries)

By default, Nmap determines your DNS servers (for rDNS resolution) from your resolv.conf file
(Unix) or the Registry (Win32). Alternatively, you may use this option to specify alternate servers.
This option is not honored if you are using −−system−dns. Using multiple DNS servers is often faster,
especially if you choose authoritative servers for your target IP space. This option can also improve
stealth, as your requests can be bounced off just about any recursive DNS server on the Internet.

This option also comes in handy when scanning private networks. Sometimes only a few name servers
provide proper rDNS information, and you may not even know where they are. You can scan the
network for port 53 (perhaps with version detection), then try Nmap list scans (−sL) specifying each
name server one at a time with −−dns−servers until you find one which works.

This option might not be honored if the DNS response exceeds the size of a UDP packet. In such a
situation our DNS resolver will make the best effort to extract a response from the truncated packet,
and if not successful it will fall back to using the system resolver. Also, responses that contain
CNAME aliases will fall back to the system resolver.
PORT SCANNING BASICS
While Nmap has grown in functionality over the years, it began as an efficient port scanner, and that
remains its core function. The simple command nmap target scans 1,000 TCP ports on the host target.
While many port scanners have traditionally lumped all ports into the open or closed states, Nmap is much
more granular. It divides ports into six states: open, closed, filtered, unfiltered, open|filtered, or
closed|filtered.
These states are not intrinsic properties of the port itself, but describe how Nmap sees them. For example,
an Nmap scan from the same network as the target may show port 135/tcp as open, while a scan at the same
time with the same options from across the Internet might show that port as filtered.
The six port states recognized by Nmap
open
An application is actively accepting TCP connections, UDP datagrams or SCTP associations on this
port. Finding these is often the primary goal of port scanning. Security−minded people know that each
open port is an avenue for attack. Attackers and pen−testers want to exploit the open ports, while
administrators try to close or protect them with firewalls without thwarting legitimate users. Open
ports are also interesting for non−security scans because they show services available for use on the
network.
closed
A closed port is accessible (it receives and responds to Nmap probe packets), but there is no
application listening on it. They can be helpful in showing that a host is up on an IP address (host
discovery, or ping scanning), and as part of OS detection. Because closed ports are reachable, it may
be worth scanning later in case some open up. Administrators may want to consider blocking such
ports with a firewall. Then they would appear in the filtered state, discussed next.
filtered
Nmap cannot determine whether the port is open because packet filtering prevents its probes from
reaching the port. The filtering could be from a dedicated firewall device, router rules, or host−based
firewall software. These ports frustrate attackers because they provide so little information. Sometimes
they respond with ICMP error messages such as type 3 code 13 (destination unreachable:
communication administratively prohibited), but filters that simply drop probes without responding are
far more common. This forces Nmap to retry several times just in case the probe was dropped due to
network congestion rather than filtering. This slows down the scan dramatically.
unfiltered
The unfiltered state means that a port is accessible, but Nmap is unable to determine whether it is open
or closed. Only the ACK scan, which is used to map firewall rulesets, classifies ports into this state.
Scanning unfiltered ports with other scan types such as Window scan, SYN scan, or FIN scan, may
help resolve whether the port is open.

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open|filtered
Nmap places ports in this state when it is unable to determine whether a port is open or filtered. This
occurs for scan types in which open ports give no response. The lack of response could also mean that
a packet filter dropped the probe or any response it elicited. So Nmap does not know for sure whether
the port is open or being filtered. The UDP, IP protocol, FIN, NULL, and Xmas scans classify ports
this way.
closed|filtered
This state is used when Nmap is unable to determine whether a port is closed or filtered. It is only used
for the IP ID idle scan.
PORT SCANNING TECHNIQUES
As a novice performing automotive repair, I can struggle for hours trying to fit my rudimentary tools
(hammer, duct tape, wrench, etc.) to the task at hand. When I fail miserably and tow my jalopy to a real
mechanic, he invariably fishes around in a huge tool chest until pulling out the perfect gizmo which makes
the job seem effortless. The art of port scanning is similar. Experts understand the dozens of scan
techniques and choose the appropriate one (or combination) for a given task. Inexperienced users and script
kiddies, on the other hand, try to solve every problem with the default SYN scan. Since Nmap is free, the
only barrier to port scanning mastery is knowledge. That certainly beats the automotive world, where it may
take great skill to determine that you need a strut spring compressor, then you still have to pay thousands of
dollars for it.
Most of the scan types are only available to privileged users. This is because they send and receive raw
packets, which requires root access on Unix systems. Using an administrator account on Windows is
recommended, though Nmap sometimes works for unprivileged users on that platform when Npcap has
already been loaded into the OS. Requiring root privileges was a serious limitation when Nmap was
released in 1997, as many users only had access to shared shell accounts. Now, the world is different.
Computers are cheaper, far more people have always−on direct Internet access, and desktop Unix systems
(including Linux and Mac OS X) are prevalent. A Windows version of Nmap is now available, allowing it
to run on even more desktops. For all these reasons, users have less need to run Nmap from limited shared
shell accounts. This is fortunate, as the privileged options make Nmap far more powerful and flexible.
While Nmap attempts to produce accurate results, keep in mind that all of its insights are based on packets
returned by the target machines (or firewalls in front of them). Such hosts may be untrustworthy and send
responses intended to confuse or mislead Nmap. Much more common are non−RFC−compliant hosts that
do not respond as they should to Nmap probes. FIN, NULL, and Xmas scans are particularly susceptible to
this problem. Such issues are specific to certain scan types and so are discussed in the individual scan type
entries.
This section documents the dozen or so port scan techniques supported by Nmap. Only one method may be
used at a time, except that UDP scan (−sU) and any one of the SCTP scan types (−sY, −sZ) may be
combined with any one of the TCP scan types. As a memory aid, port scan type options are of the form
−sC, where C is a prominent character in the scan name, usually the first. The one exception to this is the
deprecated FTP bounce scan (−b). By default, Nmap performs a SYN Scan, though it substitutes a connect
scan if the user does not have proper privileges to send raw packets (requires root access on Unix). Of the
scans listed in this section, unprivileged users can only execute connect and FTP bounce scans.
−sS (TCP SYN scan)
SYN scan is the default and most popular scan option for good reasons. It can be performed quickly,
scanning thousands of ports per second on a fast network not hampered by restrictive firewalls. It is
also relatively unobtrusive and stealthy since it never completes TCP connections. SYN scan works
against any compliant TCP stack rather than depending on idiosyncrasies of specific platforms as
Nmap's FIN/NULL/Xmas, Maimon and idle scans do. It also allows clear, reliable differentiation
between the open, closed, and filtered states.

This technique is often referred to as half−open scanning, because you don't open a full TCP
connection. You send a SYN packet, as if you are going to open a real connection and then wait for a
response. A SYN/ACK indicates the port is listening (open), while a RST (reset) is indicative of a

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non−listener. If no response is received after several retransmissions, the port is marked as filtered.
The port is also marked filtered if an ICMP unreachable error (type 3, code 0, 1, 2, 3, 9, 10, or 13) is
received. The port is also considered open if a SYN packet (without the ACK flag) is received in
response. This can be due to an extremely rare TCP feature known as a simultaneous open or split
handshake connection (see https://nmap.org/misc/split-handshake.pdf).
−sT (TCP connect scan)
TCP connect scan is the default TCP scan type when SYN scan is not an option. This is the case when
a user does not have raw packet privileges. Instead of writing raw packets as most other scan types do,
Nmap asks the underlying operating system to establish a connection with the target machine and port
by issuing the connect system call. This is the same high−level system call that web browsers, P2P
clients, and most other network−enabled applications use to establish a connection. It is part of a
programming interface known as the Berkeley Sockets API. Rather than read raw packet responses off
the wire, Nmap uses this API to obtain status information on each connection attempt.

When SYN scan is available, it is usually a better choice. Nmap has less control over the high level
connect call than with raw packets, making it less efficient. The system call completes connections to
open target ports rather than performing the half−open reset that SYN scan does. Not only does this
take longer and require more packets to obtain the same information, but target machines are more
likely to log the connection. A decent IDS will catch either, but most machines have no such alarm
system. Many services on your average Unix system will add a note to syslog, and sometimes a cryptic
error message, when Nmap connects and then closes the connection without sending data. Truly
pathetic services crash when this happens, though that is uncommon. An administrator who sees a
bunch of connection attempts in her logs from a single system should know that she has been connect
scanned.
−sU (UDP scans)
While most popular services on the Internet run over the TCP protocol, UDP[6] services are widely
deployed. DNS, SNMP, and DHCP (registered ports 53, 161/162, and 67/68) are three of the most
common. Because UDP scanning is generally slower and more difficult than TCP, some security
auditors ignore these ports. This is a mistake, as exploitable UDP services are quite common and
attackers certainly don't ignore the whole protocol. Fortunately, Nmap can help inventory UDP ports.

UDP scan is activated with the −sU option. It can be combined with a TCP scan type such as SYN
scan (−sS) to check both protocols during the same run.

UDP scan works by sending a UDP packet to every targeted port. For some common ports such as 53
and 161, a protocol−specific payload is sent to increase response rate, but for most ports the packet is
empty unless the −−data, −−data−string, or −−data−length options are specified. If an ICMP port
unreachable error (type 3, code 3) is returned, the port is closed. Other ICMP unreachable errors (type
3, codes 0, 1, 2, 9, 10, or 13) mark the port as filtered. Occasionally, a service will respond with a UDP
packet, proving that it is open. If no response is received after retransmissions, the port is classified as
open|filtered. This means that the port could be open, or perhaps packet filters are blocking the
communication. Version detection (−sV) can be used to help differentiate the truly open ports from the
filtered ones.

A big challenge with UDP scanning is doing it quickly. Open and filtered ports rarely send any
response, leaving Nmap to time out and then conduct retransmissions just in case the probe or
response were lost. Closed ports are often an even bigger problem. They usually send back an ICMP
port unreachable error. But unlike the RST packets sent by closed TCP ports in response to a SYN or
connect scan, many hosts rate limit ICMP port unreachable messages by default. Linux and Solaris are
particularly strict about this. For example, the Linux 2.4.20 kernel limits destination unreachable
messages to one per second (in net/ipv4/icmp.c).

Nmap detects rate limiting and slows down accordingly to avoid flooding the network with useless
packets that the target machine will drop. Unfortunately, a Linux−style limit of one packet per second

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makes a 65,536−port scan take more than 18 hours. Ideas for speeding your UDP scans up include
scanning more hosts in parallel, doing a quick scan of just the popular ports first, scanning from
behind the firewall, and using −−host−timeout to skip slow hosts.
−sY (SCTP INIT scan)
SCTP[7] is a relatively new alternative to the TCP and UDP protocols, combining most characteristics
of TCP and UDP, and also adding new features like multi−homing and multi−streaming. It is mostly
being used for SS7/SIGTRAN related services but has the potential to be used for other applications as
well. SCTP INIT scan is the SCTP equivalent of a TCP SYN scan. It can be performed quickly,
scanning thousands of ports per second on a fast network not hampered by restrictive firewalls. Like
SYN scan, INIT scan is relatively unobtrusive and stealthy, since it never completes SCTP
associations. It also allows clear, reliable differentiation between the open, closed, and filtered states.

This technique is often referred to as half−open scanning, because you don't open a full SCTP
association. You send an INIT chunk, as if you are going to open a real association and then wait for a
response. An INIT−ACK chunk indicates the port is listening (open), while an ABORT chunk is
indicative of a non−listener. If no response is received after several retransmissions, the port is marked
as filtered. The port is also marked filtered if an ICMP unreachable error (type 3, code 0, 1, 2, 3, 9, 10,
or 13) is received.
−sN; −sF; −sX (TCP NULL, FIN, and Xmas scans)
These three scan types (even more are possible with the −−scanflags option described in the next
section) exploit a subtle loophole in the TCP RFC[8] to differentiate between open and closed ports.
Page 65 of RFC 793 says that “if the [destination] port state is CLOSED .... an incoming segment not
containing a RST causes a RST to be sent in response.” Then the next page discusses packets sent to
open ports without the SYN, RST, or ACK bits set, stating that: “you are unlikely to get here, but if
you do, drop the segment, and return.”

When scanning systems compliant with this RFC text, any packet not containing SYN, RST, or ACK
bits will result in a returned RST if the port is closed and no response at all if the port is open. As long
as none of those three bits are included, any combination of the other three (FIN, PSH, and URG) are
OK. Nmap exploits this with three scan types:
Null scan (−sN)
Does not set any bits (TCP flag header is 0)
FIN scan (−sF)
Sets just the TCP FIN bit.
Xmas scan (−sX)
Sets the FIN, PSH, and URG flags, lighting the packet up like a Christmas tree.

These three scan types are exactly the same in behavior except for the TCP flags set in probe packets.
If a RST packet is received, the port is considered closed, while no response means it is open|filtered.
The port is marked filtered if an ICMP unreachable error (type 3, code 0, 1, 2, 3, 9, 10, or 13) is
received.

The key advantage to these scan types is that they can sneak through certain non−stateful firewalls and
packet filtering routers. Another advantage is that these scan types are a little more stealthy than even a
SYN scan. Don't count on this though—most modern IDS products can be configured to detect them.
The big downside is that not all systems follow RFC 793 to the letter. A number of systems send RST
responses to the probes regardless of whether the port is open or not. This causes all of the ports to be
labeled closed. Major operating systems that do this are Microsoft Windows, many Cisco devices,
BSDI, and IBM OS/400. This scan does work against most Unix−based systems though. Another
downside of these scans is that they can't distinguish open ports from certain filtered ones, leaving you
with the response open|filtered.
−sA (TCP ACK scan)

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This scan is different than the others discussed so far in that it never determines open (or even
open|filtered) ports. It is used to map out firewall rulesets, determining whether they are stateful or not
and which ports are filtered.

The ACK scan probe packet has only the ACK flag set (unless you use −−scanflags). When scanning
unfiltered systems, open and closed ports will both return a RST packet. Nmap then labels them as
unfiltered, meaning that they are reachable by the ACK packet, but whether they are open or closed is
undetermined. Ports that don't respond, or send certain ICMP error messages back (type 3, code 0, 1,
2, 3, 9, 10, or 13), are labeled filtered.
−sW (TCP Window scan)
Window scan is exactly the same as ACK scan except that it exploits an implementation detail of
certain systems to differentiate open ports from closed ones, rather than always printing unfiltered
when a RST is returned. It does this by examining the TCP Window field of the RST packets returned.
On some systems, open ports use a positive window size (even for RST packets) while closed ones
have a zero window. So instead of always listing a port as unfiltered when it receives a RST back,
Window scan lists the port as open or closed if the TCP Window value in that reset is positive or zero,
respectively.

This scan relies on an implementation detail of a minority of systems out on the Internet, so you can't
always trust it. Systems that don't support it will usually return all ports closed. Of course, it is
possible that the machine really has no open ports. If most scanned ports are closed but a few common
port numbers (such as 22, 25, 53) are filtered, the system is most likely susceptible. Occasionally,
systems will even show the exact opposite behavior. If your scan shows 1,000 open ports and three
closed or filtered ports, then those three may very well be the truly open ones.
−sM (TCP Maimon scan)
The Maimon scan is named after its discoverer, Uriel Maimon. He described the technique in Phrack
Magazine issue #49 (November 1996). Nmap, which included this technique, was released two issues
later. This technique is exactly the same as NULL, FIN, and Xmas scans, except that the probe is
FIN/ACK. According to RFC 793[8] (TCP), a RST packet should be generated in response to such a
probe whether the port is open or closed. However, Uriel noticed that many BSD−derived systems
simply drop the packet if the port is open.
−−scanflags (Custom TCP scan)
Truly advanced Nmap users need not limit themselves to the canned scan types offered. The
−−scanflags option allows you to design your own scan by specifying arbitrary TCP flags. Let your
creative juices flow, while evading intrusion detection systems whose vendors simply paged through
the Nmap man page adding specific rules!

The −−scanflags argument can be a numerical flag value such as 9 (PSH and FIN), but using symbolic
names is easier. Just mash together any combination of URG, ACK, PSH, RST, SYN, and FIN. For
example, −−scanflags URGACKPSHRSTSYNFIN sets everything, though it's not very useful for
scanning. The order these are specified in is irrelevant.

In addition to specifying the desired flags, you can specify a TCP scan type (such as −sA or −sF). That
base type tells Nmap how to interpret responses. For example, a SYN scan considers no−response to
indicate a filtered port, while a FIN scan treats the same as open|filtered. Nmap will behave the same
way it does for the base scan type, except that it will use the TCP flags you specify instead. If you
don't specify a base type, SYN scan is used.
−sZ (SCTP COOKIE ECHO scan)
SCTP COOKIE ECHO scan is a more advanced SCTP scan. It takes advantage of the fact that SCTP
implementations should silently drop packets containing COOKIE ECHO chunks on open ports, but
send an ABORT if the port is closed. The advantage of this scan type is that it is not as obvious a port
scan than an INIT scan. Also, there may be non−stateful firewall rulesets blocking INIT chunks, but
not COOKIE ECHO chunks. Don't be fooled into thinking that this will make a port scan invisible; a

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good IDS will be able to detect SCTP COOKIE ECHO scans too. The downside is that SCTP
COOKIE ECHO scans cannot differentiate between open and filtered ports, leaving you with the state
open|filtered in both cases.
−sI zombie host[:probeport] (idle scan)
This advanced scan method allows for a truly blind TCP port scan of the target (meaning no packets
are sent to the target from your real IP address). Instead, a unique side−channel attack exploits
predictable IP fragmentation ID sequence generation on the zombie host to glean information about
the open ports on the target. IDS systems will display the scan as coming from the zombie machine
you specify (which must be up and meet certain criteria). This fascinating scan type is too complex to
fully describe in this reference guide, so I wrote and posted an informal paper with full details at
https://nmap.org/book/idlescan.html.

Besides being extraordinarily stealthy (due to its blind nature), this scan type permits mapping out
IP−based trust relationships between machines. The port listing shows open ports from the perspective
of the zombie host. So you can try scanning a target using various zombies that you think might be
trusted (via router/packet filter rules).

You can add a colon followed by a port number to the zombie host if you wish to probe a particular
port on the zombie for IP ID changes. Otherwise Nmap will use the port it uses by default for TCP
pings (80).
−sO (IP protocol scan)
IP protocol scan allows you to determine which IP protocols (TCP, ICMP, IGMP, etc.) are supported
by target machines. This isn't technically a port scan, since it cycles through IP protocol numbers
rather than TCP or UDP port numbers. Yet it still uses the −p option to select scanned protocol
numbers, reports its results within the normal port table format, and even uses the same underlying
scan engine as the true port scanning methods. So it is close enough to a port scan that it belongs here.

Besides being useful in its own right, protocol scan demonstrates the power of open−source software.
While the fundamental idea is pretty simple, I had not thought to add it nor received any requests for
such functionality. Then in the summer of 2000, Gerhard Rieger conceived the idea, wrote an excellent
patch implementing it, and sent it to the announce mailing list (then called nmap−hackers). I
incorporated that patch into the Nmap tree and released a new version the next day. Few pieces of
commercial software have users enthusiastic enough to design and contribute their own improvements!

Protocol scan works in a similar fashion to UDP scan. Instead of iterating through the port number
field of a UDP packet, it sends IP packet headers and iterates through the eight−bit IP protocol field.
The headers are usually empty, containing no data and not even the proper header for the claimed
protocol. The exceptions are TCP, UDP, ICMP, SCTP, and IGMP. A proper protocol header for those
is included since some systems won't send them otherwise and because Nmap already has functions to
create them. Instead of watching for ICMP port unreachable messages, protocol scan is on the lookout
for ICMP protocol unreachable messages. If Nmap receives any response in any protocol from the
target host, Nmap marks that protocol as open. An ICMP protocol unreachable error (type 3, code 2)
causes the protocol to be marked as closed while port unreachable (type 3, code 3) marks the protocol
open. Other ICMP unreachable errors (type 3, code 0, 1, 9, 10, or 13) cause the protocol to be marked
filtered (though they prove that ICMP is open at the same time). If no response is received after
retransmissions, the protocol is marked open|filtered
−b FTP relay host (FTP bounce scan)
An interesting feature of the FTP protocol (RFC 959[9]) is support for so−called proxy FTP
connections. This allows a user to connect to one FTP server, then ask that files be sent to a
third−party server. Such a feature is ripe for abuse on many levels, so most servers have ceased
supporting it. One of the abuses this feature allows is causing the FTP server to port scan other hosts.
Simply ask the FTP server to send a file to each interesting port of a target host in turn. The error
message will describe whether the port is open or not. This is a good way to bypass firewalls because

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organizational FTP servers are often placed where they have more access to other internal hosts than
any old Internet host would. Nmap supports FTP bounce scan with the −b option. It takes an argument
of the form username:password@server:port. Server is the name or IP address of a vulnerable FTP
server. As with a normal URL, you may omit username:password, in which case anonymous login
credentials (user: anonymous password:−wwwuser@) are used. The port number (and preceding
colon) may be omitted as well, in which case the default FTP port (21) on server is used.

This vulnerability was widespread in 1997 when Nmap was released, but has largely been fixed.
Vulnerable servers are still around, so it is worth trying when all else fails. If bypassing a firewall is
your goal, scan the target network for port 21 (or even for any FTP services if you scan all ports with
version detection) and use the ftp−bounce NSE script. Nmap will tell you whether the host is
vulnerable or not. If you are just trying to cover your tracks, you don't need to (and, in fact, shouldn't)
limit yourself to hosts on the target network. Before you go scanning random Internet addresses for
vulnerable FTP servers, consider that sysadmins may not appreciate you abusing their servers in this
way.
PORT SPECIFICATION AND SCAN ORDER
In addition to all of the scan methods discussed previously, Nmap offers options for specifying which ports
are scanned and whether the scan order is randomized or sequential. By default, Nmap scans the most
common 1,000 ports for each protocol.

−p port ranges (Only scan specified ports)

This option specifies which ports you want to scan and overrides the default. Individual port numbers
are OK, as are ranges separated by a hyphen (e.g. 1−1023). The beginning and/or end values of a
range may be omitted, causing Nmap to use 1 and 65535, respectively. So you can specify −p− to scan
ports from 1 through 65535. Scanning port zero is allowed if you specify it explicitly. For IP protocol
scanning (−sO), this option specifies the protocol numbers you wish to scan for (0–255).

When scanning a combination of protocols (e.g. TCP and UDP), you can specify a particular protocol
by preceding the port numbers by T: for TCP, U: for UDP, S: for SCTP, or P: for IP Protocol. The
qualifier lasts until you specify another qualifier. For example, the argument −p
U:53,111,137,T:21−25,80,139,8080 would scan UDP ports 53, 111,and 137, as well as the listed TCP
ports. Note that to scan both UDP and TCP, you have to specify −sU and at least one TCP scan type
(such as −sS, −sF, or −sT). If no protocol qualifier is given, the port numbers are added to all protocol
lists. Ports can also be specified by name according to what the port is referred to in the
nmap−services. You can even use the wildcards * and ? with the names. For example, to scan FTP
and all ports whose names begin with “http”, use −p ftp,http*. Be careful about shell expansions and
quote the argument to −p if unsure.

Ranges of ports can be surrounded by square brackets to indicate ports inside that range that appear in
nmap−services. For example, the following will scan all ports in nmap−services equal to or below
1024: −p [−1024]. Be careful with shell expansions and quote the argument to −p if unsure.
−−exclude−ports port ranges (Exclude the specified ports from scanning)
This option specifies which ports you do want Nmap to exclude from scanning. The port ranges are
specified similar to −p. For IP protocol scanning (−sO), this option specifies the protocol numbers you
wish to exclude (0–255).

When ports are asked to be excluded, they are excluded from all types of scans (i.e. they will not be
scanned under any circumstances). This also includes the discovery phase.
−F (Fast (limited port) scan)
Specifies that you wish to scan fewer ports than the default. Normally Nmap scans the most common
1,000 ports for each scanned protocol. With −F, this is reduced to 100.

Nmap needs an nmap−services file with frequency information in order to know which ports are the

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most common. If port frequency information isn't available, perhaps because of the use of a custom
nmap−services file, Nmap scans all named ports plus ports 1−1024. In that case, −F means to scan
only ports that are named in the services file.
−r (Don't randomize ports)
By default, Nmap randomizes the scanned port order (except that certain commonly accessible ports
are moved near the beginning for efficiency reasons). This randomization is normally desirable, but
you can specify −r for sequential (sorted from lowest to highest) port scanning instead.
−−port−ratio ratio<decimal number between 0 and 1>
Scans all ports in nmap−services file with a ratio greater than the one given. ratio must be between 0.0
and 1.0.
−−top−ports n
Scans the n highest−ratio ports found in nmap−services file after excluding all ports specified by
−−exclude−ports. n must be 1 or greater.
SERVICE AND VERSION DETECTION
Point Nmap at a remote machine and it might tell you that ports 25/tcp, 80/tcp, and 53/udp are open. Using
its nmap−services database of about 2,200 well−known services, Nmap would report that those ports
probably correspond to a mail server (SMTP), web server (HTTP), and name server (DNS) respectively.
This lookup is usually accurate—the vast majority of daemons listening on TCP port 25 are, in fact, mail
servers. However, you should not bet your security on this! People can and do run services on strange ports.
Even if Nmap is right, and the hypothetical server above is running SMTP, HTTP, and DNS servers, that is
not a lot of information. When doing vulnerability assessments (or even simple network inventories) of
your companies or clients, you really want to know which mail and DNS servers and versions are running.
Having an accurate version number helps dramatically in determining which exploits a server is vulnerable
to. Version detection helps you obtain this information.
After TCP and/or UDP ports are discovered using one of the other scan methods, version detection
interrogates those ports to determine more about what is actually running. The nmap−service−probes
database contains probes for querying various services and match expressions to recognize and parse
responses. Nmap tries to determine the service protocol (e.g. FTP, SSH, Telnet, HTTP), the application
name (e.g. ISC BIND, Apache httpd, Solaris telnetd), the version number, hostname, device type (e.g.
printer, router), the OS family (e.g. Windows, Linux). When possible, Nmap also gets the Common
Platform Enumeration (CPE) representation of this information. Sometimes miscellaneous details like
whether an X server is open to connections, the SSH protocol version, or the KaZaA user name, are
available. Of course, most services don't provide all of this information. If Nmap was compiled with
OpenSSL support, it will connect to SSL servers to deduce the service listening behind that encryption
layer. Some UDP ports are left in the open|filtered state after a UDP port scan is unable to determine
whether the port is open or filtered. Version detection will try to elicit a response from these ports (just as it
does with open ports), and change the state to open if it succeeds. open|filtered TCP ports are treated the
same way. Note that the Nmap −A option enables version detection among other things. A paper
documenting the workings, usage, and customization of version detection is available at
https://nmap.org/book/vscan.html.
When RPC services are discovered, the Nmap RPC grinder is automatically used to determine the RPC
program and version numbers. It takes all the TCP/UDP ports detected as RPC and floods them with
SunRPC program NULL commands in an attempt to determine whether they are RPC ports, and if so, what
program and version number they serve up. Thus you can effectively obtain the same info as rpcinfo −p
even if the target's portmapper is behind a firewall (or protected by TCP wrappers). Decoys do not currently
work with RPC scan.
When Nmap receives responses from a service but cannot match them to its database, it prints out a special
fingerprint and a URL for you to submit if to if you know for sure what is running on the port. Please take a
couple minutes to make the submission so that your find can benefit everyone. Thanks to these submissions,
Nmap has about 6,500 pattern matches for more than 650 protocols such as SMTP, FTP, HTTP, etc.
Version detection is enabled and controlled with the following options:

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−sV (Version detection)

Enables version detection, as discussed above. Alternatively, you can use −A, which enables version
detection among other things.

−sR is an alias for −sV. Prior to March 2011, it was used to active the RPC grinder separately from
version detection, but now these options are always combined.
−−allports (Don't exclude any ports from version detection)
By default, Nmap version detection skips TCP port 9100 because some printers simply print anything
sent to that port, leading to dozens of pages of HTTP GET requests, binary SSL session requests, etc.
This behavior can be changed by modifying or removing the Exclude directive in
nmap−service−probes, or you can specify −−allports to scan all ports regardless of any Exclude
directive.
−−version−intensity intensity (Set version scan intensity)
When performing a version scan (−sV), Nmap sends a series of probes, each of which is assigned a
rarity value between one and nine. The lower−numbered probes are effective against a wide variety of
common services, while the higher−numbered ones are rarely useful. The intensity level specifies
which probes should be applied. The higher the number, the more likely it is the service will be
correctly identified. However, high intensity scans take longer. The intensity must be between 0 and 9.
The default is 7. When a probe is registered to the target port via the nmap−service−probes ports
directive, that probe is tried regardless of intensity level. This ensures that the DNS probes will always
be attempted against any open port 53, the SSL probe will be done against 443, etc.
−−version−light (Enable light mode)
This is a convenience alias for −−version−intensity 2. This light mode makes version scanning much
faster, but it is slightly less likely to identify services.
−−version−all (Try every single probe)
An alias for −−version−intensity 9, ensuring that every single probe is attempted against each port.
−−version−trace (Trace version scan activity)
This causes Nmap to print out extensive debugging info about what version scanning is doing. It is a
subset of what you get with −−packet−trace.
OS DETECTION
One of Nmap's best−known features is remote OS detection using TCP/IP stack fingerprinting. Nmap sends
a series of TCP and UDP packets to the remote host and examines practically every bit in the responses.
After performing dozens of tests such as TCP ISN sampling, TCP options support and ordering, IP ID
sampling, and the initial window size check, Nmap compares the results to its nmap−os−db database of
more than 2,600 known OS fingerprints and prints out the OS details if there is a match. Each fingerprint
includes a freeform textual description of the OS, and a classification which provides the vendor name (e.g.
Sun), underlying OS (e.g. Solaris), OS generation (e.g. 10), and device type (general purpose, router,
switch, game console, etc). Most fingerprints also have a Common Platform Enumeration (CPE)
representation, like cpe:/o:linux:linux_kernel:2.6.
If Nmap is unable to guess the OS of a machine, and conditions are good (e.g. at least one open port and
one closed port were found), Nmap will provide a URL you can use to submit the fingerprint if you know
(for sure) the OS running on the machine. By doing this you contribute to the pool of operating systems
known to Nmap and thus it will be more accurate for everyone.
OS detection enables some other tests which make use of information that is gathered during the process
anyway. One of these is TCP Sequence Predictability Classification. This measures approximately how
hard it is to establish a forged TCP connection against the remote host. It is useful for exploiting source−IP
based trust relationships (rlogin, firewall filters, etc) or for hiding the source of an attack. This sort of
spoofing is rarely performed any more, but many machines are still vulnerable to it. The actual difficulty
number is based on statistical sampling and may fluctuate. It is generally better to use the English
classification such as “worthy challenge” or “trivial joke”. This is only reported in normal output in verbose
(−v) mode. When verbose mode is enabled along with −O, IP ID sequence generation is also reported.

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Most machines are in the “incremental” class, which means that they increment the ID field in the IP header
for each packet they send. This makes them vulnerable to several advanced information gathering and
spoofing attacks.
Another bit of extra information enabled by OS detection is a guess at a target's uptime. This uses the TCP
timestamp option (RFC 1323[10]) to guess when a machine was last rebooted. The guess can be inaccurate
due to the timestamp counter not being initialized to zero or the counter overflowing and wrapping around,
so it is printed only in verbose mode.
A paper documenting the workings, usage, and customization of OS detection is available at
https://nmap.org/book/osdetect.html.
OS detection is enabled and controlled with the following options:
−O (Enable OS detection)
Enables OS detection, as discussed above. Alternatively, you can use −A to enable OS detection along
with other things.
−−osscan−limit (Limit OS detection to promising targets)
OS detection is far more effective if at least one open and one closed TCP port are found. Set this
option and Nmap will not even try OS detection against hosts that do not meet this criteria. This can
save substantial time, particularly on −Pn scans against many hosts. It only matters when OS detection
is requested with −O or −A.
−−osscan−guess; −−fuzzy (Guess OS detection results)
When Nmap is unable to detect a perfect OS match, it sometimes offers up near−matches as
possibilities. The match has to be very close for Nmap to do this by default. Either of these
(equivalent) options make Nmap guess more aggressively. Nmap will still tell you when an imperfect
match is printed and display its confidence level (percentage) for each guess.
−−max−os−tries (Set the maximum number of OS detection tries against a target)
When Nmap performs OS detection against a target and fails to find a perfect match, it usually repeats
the attempt. By default, Nmap tries five times if conditions are favorable for OS fingerprint
submission, and twice when conditions aren't so good. Specifying a lower −−max−os−tries value
(such as 1) speeds Nmap up, though you miss out on retries which could potentially identify the OS.
Alternatively, a high value may be set to allow even more retries when conditions are favorable. This is
rarely done, except to generate better fingerprints for submission and integration into the Nmap OS
database.
NMAP SCRIPTING ENGINE (NSE)
The Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE) is one of Nmap's most powerful and flexible features. It allows users to
write (and share) simple scripts (using the Lua programming language[11]

) to automate a wide variety of networking tasks. Those scripts are executed in parallel with the speed and
efficiency you expect from Nmap. Users can rely on the growing and diverse set of scripts distributed with
Nmap, or write their own to meet custom needs.
Tasks we had in mind when creating the system include network discovery, more sophisticated version
detection, vulnerability detection. NSE can even be used for vulnerability exploitation.
To reflect those different uses and to simplify the choice of which scripts to run, each script contains a field
associating it with one or more categories. Currently defined categories are auth, broadcast, default.
discovery, dos, exploit, external, fuzzer, intrusive, malware, safe, version, and vuln. These are all described
at https://nmap.org/book/nse-usage.html#nse-categories.
Scripts are not run in a sandbox and thus could accidentally or maliciously damage your system or invade
your privacy. Never run scripts from third parties unless you trust the authors or have carefully audited the
scripts yourself.
The Nmap Scripting Engine is described in detail at https://nmap.org/book/nse.html

and is controlled by the following options:

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−sC
Performs a script scan using the default set of scripts. It is equivalent to −−script=default. Some of
the scripts in this category are considered intrusive and should not be run against a target network
without permission.
−−script filename|category|directory|expression[,...]
Runs a script scan using the comma−separated list of filenames, script categories, and directories.
Each element in the list may also be a Boolean expression describing a more complex set of scripts.
Each element is interpreted first as an expression, then as a category, and finally as a file or directory
name.

There are two special features for advanced users only. One is to prefix script names and expressions
with + to force them to run even if they normally wouldn't (e.g. the relevant service wasn't detected on
the target port). The other is that the argument all may be used to specify every script in Nmap's
database. Be cautious with this because NSE contains dangerous scripts such as exploits, brute force
authentication crackers, and denial of service attacks.

File and directory names may be relative or absolute. Absolute names are used directly. Relative paths
are looked for in the scripts of each of the following places until found:
−−datadir
$NMAPDIR
˜/.nmap (not searched on Windows)
HOME\AppData\Roaming\nmap (only on Windows)
the directory containing the nmap executable
the directory containing the nmap executable, followed by ../share/nmap
NMAPDATADIR
the current directory.

When a directory name is given, Nmap loads every file in the directory whose name ends with .nse.
All other files are ignored and directories are not searched recursively. When a filename is given, it
does not have to have the .nse extension; it will be added automatically if necessary. Nmap scripts are
stored in a scripts subdirectory of the Nmap data directory by default (see
https://nmap.org/book/data-files.html).

For efficiency, scripts are indexed in a database stored in scripts/script.db, which lists the category or
categories in which each script belongs. When referring to scripts from script.db by name, you can
use a shell−style ‘*’ wildcard.
nmap −−script "http−*"
Loads all scripts whose name starts with http−, such as http−auth and http−open−proxy. The
argument to −−script had to be in quotes to protect the wildcard from the shell.

More complicated script selection can be done using the and, or, and not operators to build Boolean
expressions. The operators have the same precedence[12] as in Lua: not is the highest, followed by and
and then or. You can alter precedence by using parentheses. Because expressions contain space
characters it is necessary to quote them.
nmap −−script "not intrusive"
Loads every script except for those in the intrusive category.
nmap −−script "default or safe"
This is functionally equivalent to nmap −−script "default,safe". It loads all scripts that are in
the default category or the safe category or both.
nmap −−script "default and safe"
Loads those scripts that are in both the default and safe categories.
nmap −−script "(default or safe or intrusive) and not http−*"

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Loads scripts in the default, safe, or intrusive categories, except for those whose names start with
http−.
−−script−args n1=v1,n2={n3=v3},n4={v4,v5}
Lets you provide arguments to NSE scripts. Arguments are a comma−separated list of name=value
pairs. Names and values may be strings not containing whitespace or the characters ‘{’, ‘}’, ‘=’, or ‘,’.
To include one of these characters in a string, enclose the string in single or double quotes. Within a
quoted string, ‘\’ escapes a quote. A backslash is only used to escape quotation marks in this special
case; in all other cases a backslash is interpreted literally. Values may also be tables enclosed in {},
just as in Lua. A table may contain simple string values or more name−value pairs, including nested
tables. Many scripts qualify their arguments with the script name, as in xmpp−info.server_name. You
may use that full qualified version to affect just the specified script, or you may pass the unqualified
version (server_name in this case) to affect all scripts using that argument name. A script will first
check for its fully qualified argument name (the name specified in its documentation) before it accepts
an unqualified argument name. A complex example of script arguments is −−script−args
'user=foo,pass=",{}=bar",whois={whodb=nofollow+ripe},xmpp−info.server_name=localhost'.
The online NSE Documentation Portal at https://nmap.org/nsedoc/ lists the arguments that each
script accepts.
−−script−args−file filename
Lets you load arguments to NSE scripts from a file. Any arguments on the command line supersede
ones in the file. The file can be an absolute path, or a path relative to Nmap's usual search path
(NMAPDIR, etc.) Arguments can be comma−separated or newline−separated, but otherwise follow
the same rules as for −−script−args, without requiring special quoting and escaping, since they are
not parsed by the shell.
−−script−help filename|category|directory|expression|all[,...]
Shows help about scripts. For each script matching the given specification, Nmap prints the script
name, its categories, and its description. The specifications are the same as those accepted by
−−script; so for example if you want help about the ftp−anon script, you would run nmap
−−script−help ftp−anon. In addition to getting help for individual scripts, you can use this as a
preview of what scripts will be run for a specification, for example with nmap −−script−help default.
−−script−trace
This option does what −−packet−trace does, just one ISO layer higher. If this option is specified all
incoming and outgoing communication performed by a script is printed. The displayed information
includes the communication protocol, the source, the target and the transmitted data. If more than 5%
of all transmitted data is not printable, then the trace output is in a hex dump format. Specifying
−−packet−trace enables script tracing too.
−−script−updatedb
This option updates the script database found in scripts/script.db which is used by Nmap to determine
the available default scripts and categories. It is only necessary to update the database if you have
added or removed NSE scripts from the default scripts directory or if you have changed the categories
of any script. This option is generally used by itself: nmap −−script−updatedb.
TIMING AND PERFORMANCE
One of my highest Nmap development priorities has always been performance. A default scan (nmap
hostname) of a host on my local network takes a fifth of a second. That is barely enough time to blink, but
adds up when you are scanning hundreds or thousands of hosts. Moreover, certain scan options such as
UDP scanning and version detection can increase scan times substantially. So can certain firewall
configurations, particularly response rate limiting. While Nmap utilizes parallelism and many advanced
algorithms to accelerate these scans, the user has ultimate control over how Nmap runs. Expert users
carefully craft Nmap commands to obtain only the information they care about while meeting their time
constraints.
Techniques for improving scan times include omitting non−critical tests, and upgrading to the latest version
of Nmap (performance enhancements are made frequently). Optimizing timing parameters can also make a
substantial difference. Those options are listed below.

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Some options accept a time parameter. This is specified in seconds by default, though you can append ‘ms’,
‘s’, ‘m’, or ‘h’ to the value to specify milliseconds, seconds, minutes, or hours. So the −−host−timeout
arguments 900000ms, 900, 900s, and 15m all do the same thing.
−−min−hostgroup numhosts; −−max−hostgroup numhosts (Adjust parallel scan group sizes)
Nmap has the ability to port scan or version scan multiple hosts in parallel. Nmap does this by
dividing the target IP space into groups and then scanning one group at a time. In general, larger
groups are more efficient. The downside is that host results can't be provided until the whole group is
finished. So if Nmap started out with a group size of 50, the user would not receive any reports (except
for the updates offered in verbose mode) until the first 50 hosts are completed.

By default, Nmap takes a compromise approach to this conflict. It starts out with a group size as low as
five so the first results come quickly and then increases the groupsize to as high as 1024. The exact
default numbers depend on the options given. For efficiency reasons, Nmap uses larger group sizes for
UDP or few−port TCP scans.

When a maximum group size is specified with −−max−hostgroup, Nmap will never exceed that size.
Specify a minimum size with −−min−hostgroup and Nmap will try to keep group sizes above that
level. Nmap may have to use smaller groups than you specify if there are not enough target hosts left
on a given interface to fulfill the specified minimum. Both may be set to keep the group size within a
specific range, though this is rarely desired.

These options do not have an effect during the host discovery phase of a scan. This includes plain ping
scans (−sn). Host discovery always works in large groups of hosts to improve speed and accuracy.

The primary use of these options is to specify a large minimum group size so that the full scan runs
more quickly. A common choice is 256 to scan a network in Class C sized chunks. For a scan with
many ports, exceeding that number is unlikely to help much. For scans of just a few port numbers, host
group sizes of 2048 or more may be helpful.
−−min−parallelism numprobes; −−max−parallelism numprobes (Adjust probe parallelization)
These options control the total number of probes that may be outstanding for a host group. They are
used for port scanning and host discovery. By default, Nmap calculates an ever−changing ideal
parallelism based on network performance. If packets are being dropped, Nmap slows down and
allows fewer outstanding probes. The ideal probe number slowly rises as the network proves itself
worthy. These options place minimum or maximum bounds on that variable. By default, the ideal
parallelism can drop to one if the network proves unreliable and rise to several hundred in perfect
conditions.

The most common usage is to set −−min−parallelism to a number higher than one to speed up scans
of poorly performing hosts or networks. This is a risky option to play with, as setting it too high may
affect accuracy. Setting this also reduces Nmap's ability to control parallelism dynamically based on
network conditions. A value of 10 might be reasonable, though I only adjust this value as a last resort.

The −−max−parallelism option is sometimes set to one to prevent Nmap from sending more than one
probe at a time to hosts. The −−scan−delay option, discussed later, is another way to do this.
−−min−rtt−timeout time, −−max−rtt−timeout time, −−initial−rtt−timeout time (Adjust probe timeouts)
Nmap maintains a running timeout value for determining how long it will wait for a probe response
before giving up or retransmitting the probe. This is calculated based on the response times of previous
probes.

If the network latency shows itself to be significant and variable, this timeout can grow to several
seconds. It also starts at a conservative (high) level and may stay that way for a while when Nmap
scans unresponsive hosts.

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Specifying a lower −−max−rtt−timeout and −−initial−rtt−timeout than the defaults can cut scan
times significantly. This is particularly true for pingless (−Pn) scans, and those against heavily filtered
networks. Don't get too aggressive though. The scan can end up taking longer if you specify such a
low value that many probes are timing out and retransmitting while the response is in transit.

If all the hosts are on a local network, 100 milliseconds (−−max−rtt−timeout 100ms) is a reasonable
aggressive value. If routing is involved, ping a host on the network first with the ICMP ping utility, or
with a custom packet crafter such as Nping that is more likely to get through a firewall. Look at the
maximum round trip time out of ten packets or so. You might want to double that for the
−−initial−rtt−timeout and triple or quadruple it for the −−max−rtt−timeout. I generally do not set
the maximum RTT below 100 ms, no matter what the ping times are. Nor do I exceed 1000 ms.

−−min−rtt−timeout is a rarely used option that could be useful when a network is so unreliable that
even Nmap's default is too aggressive. Since Nmap only reduces the timeout down to the minimum
when the network seems to be reliable, this need is unusual and should be reported as a bug to the
nmap−dev mailing list.
−−max−retries numtries (Specify the maximum number of port scan probe retransmissions)
When Nmap receives no response to a port scan probe, it could mean the port is filtered. Or maybe the
probe or response was simply lost on the network. It is also possible that the target host has rate
limiting enabled that temporarily blocked the response. So Nmap tries again by retransmitting the
initial probe. If Nmap detects poor network reliability, it may try many more times before giving up on
a port. While this benefits accuracy, it also lengthens scan times. When performance is critical, scans
may be sped up by limiting the number of retransmissions allowed. You can even specify
−−max−retries 0 to prevent any retransmissions, though that is only recommended for situations such
as informal surveys where occasional missed ports and hosts are acceptable.

The default (with no −T template) is to allow ten retransmissions. If a network seems reliable and the
target hosts aren't rate limiting, Nmap usually only does one retransmission. So most target scans
aren't even affected by dropping −−max−retries to a low value such as three. Such values can
substantially speed scans of slow (rate limited) hosts. You usually lose some information when Nmap
gives up on ports early, though that may be preferable to letting the −−host−timeout expire and losing
all information about the target.
−−host−timeout time (Give up on slow target hosts)
Some hosts simply take a long time to scan. This may be due to poorly performing or unreliable
networking hardware or software, packet rate limiting, or a restrictive firewall. The slowest few
percent of the scanned hosts can eat up a majority of the scan time. Sometimes it is best to cut your
losses and skip those hosts initially. Specify −−host−timeout with the maximum amount of time you
are willing to wait. For example, specify 30m to ensure that Nmap doesn't waste more than half an
hour on a single host. Note that Nmap may be scanning other hosts at the same time during that half an
hour, so it isn't a complete loss. A host that times out is skipped. No port table, OS detection, or
version detection results are printed for that host.
−−script−timeout time
While some scripts complete in fractions of a second, others can take hours or more depending on the
nature of the script, arguments passed in, network and application conditions, and more. The
−−script−timeout option sets a ceiling on script execution time. Any script instance which exceeds
that time will be terminated and no output will be shown. If debugging (−d) is enabled, Nmap will
report on each timeout. For host and service scripts, a script instance only scans a single target host or
port and the timeout period will be reset for the next instance.
−−scan−delay time; −−max−scan−delay time (Adjust delay between probes)
This option causes Nmap to wait at least the given amount of time between each probe it sends to a
given host. This is particularly useful in the case of rate limiting. Solaris machines (among many
others) will usually respond to UDP scan probe packets with only one ICMP message per second. Any
more than that sent by Nmap will be wasteful. A −−scan−delay of 1s will keep Nmap at that slow

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rate. Nmap tries to detect rate limiting and adjust the scan delay accordingly, but it doesn't hurt to
specify it explicitly if you already know what rate works best.

When Nmap adjusts the scan delay upward to cope with rate limiting, the scan slows down
dramatically. The −−max−scan−delay option specifies the largest delay that Nmap will allow. A low
−−max−scan−delay can speed up Nmap, but it is risky. Setting this value too low can lead to wasteful
packet retransmissions and possible missed ports when the target implements strict rate limiting.

Another use of −−scan−delay is to evade threshold based intrusion detection and prevention systems
(IDS/IPS).
−−min−rate number; −−max−rate number (Directly control the scanning rate)
Nmap's dynamic timing does a good job of finding an appropriate speed at which to scan. Sometimes,
however, you may happen to know an appropriate scanning rate for a network, or you may have to
guarantee that a scan will be finished by a certain time. Or perhaps you must keep Nmap from
scanning too quickly. The −−min−rate and −−max−rate options are designed for these situations.

When the −−min−rate option is given Nmap will do its best to send packets as fast as or faster than
the given rate. The argument is a positive real number representing a packet rate in packets per second.
For example, specifying −−min−rate 300 means that Nmap will try to keep the sending rate at or
above 300 packets per second. Specifying a minimum rate does not keep Nmap from going faster if
conditions warrant.

Likewise, −−max−rate limits a scan's sending rate to a given maximum. Use −−max−rate 100, for
example, to limit sending to 100 packets per second on a fast network. Use −−max−rate 0.1 for a slow
scan of one packet every ten seconds. Use −−min−rate and −−max−rate together to keep the rate
inside a certain range.

These two options are global, affecting an entire scan, not individual hosts. They only affect port scans
and host discovery scans. Other features like OS detection implement their own timing.

There are two conditions when the actual scanning rate may fall below the requested minimum. The
first is if the minimum is faster than the fastest rate at which Nmap can send, which is dependent on
hardware. In this case Nmap will simply send packets as fast as possible, but be aware that such high
rates are likely to cause a loss of accuracy. The second case is when Nmap has nothing to send, for
example at the end of a scan when the last probes have been sent and Nmap is waiting for them to time
out or be responded to. It's normal to see the scanning rate drop at the end of a scan or in between
hostgroups. The sending rate may temporarily exceed the maximum to make up for unpredictable
delays, but on average the rate will stay at or below the maximum.

Specifying a minimum rate should be done with care. Scanning faster than a network can support may
lead to a loss of accuracy. In some cases, using a faster rate can make a scan take longer than it would
with a slower rate. This is because Nmap's

adaptive retransmission algorithms will detect the network congestion caused by an excessive
scanning rate and increase the number of retransmissions in order to improve accuracy. So even
though packets are sent at a higher rate, more packets are sent overall. Cap the number of
retransmissions with the −−max−retries option if you need to set an upper limit on total scan time.
−−defeat−rst−ratelimit
Many hosts have long used rate limiting to reduce the number of ICMP error messages (such as
port−unreachable errors) they send. Some systems now apply similar rate limits to the RST (reset)
packets they generate. This can slow Nmap down dramatically as it adjusts its timing to reflect those
rate limits. You can tell Nmap to ignore those rate limits (for port scans such as SYN scan which don't
treat non−responsive ports as open) by specifying −−defeat−rst−ratelimit.

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Using this option can reduce accuracy, as some ports will appear non−responsive because Nmap didn't
wait long enough for a rate−limited RST response. With a SYN scan, the non−response results in the
port being labeled filtered rather than the closed state we see when RST packets are received. This
option is useful when you only care about open ports, and distinguishing between closed and filtered
ports isn't worth the extra time.
−−defeat−icmp−ratelimit
Similar to −−defeat−rst−ratelimit, the −−defeat−icmp−ratelimit option trades accuracy for speed,
increasing UDP scanning speed against hosts that rate−limit ICMP error messages. Because this
option causes Nmap to not delay in order to receive the port unreachable messages, a non−responsive
port will be labeled closed|filtered instead of the default open|filtered. This has the effect of only
treating ports which actually respond via UDP as open. Since many UDP services do not respond in
this way, the chance for inaccuracy is greater with this option than with −−defeat−rst−ratelimit.
−−nsock−engine epoll|kqueue|poll|select
Enforce use of a given nsock IO multiplexing engine. Only the select(2)−based fallback engine is
guaranteed to be available on your system. Engines are named after the name of the IO management
facility they leverage. Engines currently implemented are epoll, kqueue, poll, and select, but not all
will be present on any platform. Use nmap −V to see which engines are supported.
−T paranoid|sneaky|polite|normal|aggressive|insane (Set a timing template)
While the fine−grained timing controls discussed in the previous section are powerful and effective,
some people find them confusing. Moreover, choosing the appropriate values can sometimes take more
time than the scan you are trying to optimize. Fortunately, Nmap offers a simpler approach, with six
timing templates. You can specify them with the −T option and their number (0–5) or their name. The
template names are paranoid (0), sneaky (1), polite (2), normal (3), aggressive (4), and insane (5).
The first two are for IDS evasion. Polite mode slows down the scan to use less bandwidth and target
machine resources. Normal mode is the default and so −T3 does nothing. Aggressive mode speeds
scans up by making the assumption that you are on a reasonably fast and reliable network. Finally
insane mode assumes that you are on an extraordinarily fast network or are willing to sacrifice some
accuracy for speed.

These templates allow the user to specify how aggressive they wish to be, while leaving Nmap to pick
the exact timing values. The templates also make some minor speed adjustments for which
fine−grained control options do not currently exist. For example, −T4 prohibits the dynamic scan
delay from exceeding 10 ms for TCP ports and −T5 caps that value at 5 ms. Templates can be used in
combination with fine−grained controls, and the fine−grained controls that you specify will take
precedence over the timing template default for that parameter. I recommend using −T4 when
scanning reasonably modern and reliable networks. Keep that option even when you add fine−grained
controls so that you benefit from those extra minor optimizations that it enables.

If you are on a decent broadband or ethernet connection, I would recommend always using −T4. Some
people love −T5 though it is too aggressive for my taste. People sometimes specify −T2 because they
think it is less likely to crash hosts or because they consider themselves to be polite in general. They
often don't realize just how slow −T polite really is. Their scan may take ten times longer than a
default scan. Machine crashes and bandwidth problems are rare with the default timing options (−T3)
and so I normally recommend that for cautious scanners. Omitting version detection is far more
effective than playing with timing values at reducing these problems.

While −T0 and −T1 may be useful for avoiding IDS alerts, they will take an extraordinarily long time
to scan thousands of machines or ports. For such a long scan, you may prefer to set the exact timing
values you need rather than rely on the canned −T0 and −T1 values.

The main effects of T0 are serializing the scan so only one port is scanned at a time, and waiting five
minutes between sending each probe. T1 and T2 are similar but they only wait 15 seconds and 0.4
seconds, respectively, between probes. T3 is Nmap's default behavior, which includes parallelization.

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−T4 does the equivalent of −−max−rtt−timeout 1250ms −−min−rtt−timeout 100ms

−−initial−rtt−timeout 500ms −−max−retries 6 and sets the maximum TCP scan delay to 10
milliseconds. T5 does the equivalent of −−max−rtt−timeout 300ms −−min−rtt−timeout 50ms
−−initial−rtt−timeout 250ms −−max−retries 2 −−host−timeout 15m −−script−timeout 10m as
well as setting the maximum TCP scan delay to 5 ms.
FIREWALL/IDS EVASION AND SPOOFING
Many Internet pioneers envisioned a global open network with a universal IP address space allowing virtual
connections between any two nodes. This allows hosts to act as true peers, serving and retrieving
information from each other. People could access all of their home systems from work, changing the
climate control settings or unlocking the doors for early guests. This vision of universal connectivity has
been stifled by address space shortages and security concerns. In the early 1990s, organizations began
deploying firewalls for the express purpose of reducing connectivity. Huge networks were cordoned off
from the unfiltered Internet by application proxies, network address translation, and packet filters. The
unrestricted flow of information gave way to tight regulation of approved communication channels and the
content that passes over them.
Network obstructions such as firewalls can make mapping a network exceedingly difficult. It will not get
any easier, as stifling casual reconnaissance is often a key goal of implementing the devices. Nevertheless,
Nmap offers many features to help understand these complex networks, and to verify that filters are
working as intended. It even supports mechanisms for bypassing poorly implemented defenses. One of the
best methods of understanding your network security posture is to try to defeat it. Place yourself in the
mind−set of an attacker, and deploy techniques from this section against your networks. Launch an FTP
bounce scan, idle scan, fragmentation attack, or try to tunnel through one of your own proxies.
In addition to restricting network activity, companies are increasingly monitoring traffic with intrusion
detection systems (IDS). All of the major IDSs ship with rules designed to detect Nmap scans because
scans are sometimes a precursor to attacks. Many of these products have recently morphed into intrusion
prevention systems (IPS) that actively block traffic deemed malicious. Unfortunately for network
administrators and IDS vendors, reliably detecting bad intentions by analyzing packet data is a tough
problem. Attackers with patience, skill, and the help of certain Nmap options can usually pass by IDSs
undetected. Meanwhile, administrators must cope with large numbers of false positive results where
innocent activity is misdiagnosed and alerted on or blocked.
Occasionally people suggest that Nmap should not offer features for evading firewall rules or sneaking past
IDSs. They argue that these features are just as likely to be misused by attackers as used by administrators
to enhance security. The problem with this logic is that these methods would still be used by attackers, who
would just find other tools or patch the functionality into Nmap. Meanwhile, administrators would find it
that much harder to do their jobs. Deploying only modern, patched FTP servers is a far more powerful
defense than trying to prevent the distribution of tools implementing the FTP bounce attack.
There is no magic bullet (or Nmap option) for detecting and subverting firewalls and IDS systems. It takes
skill and experience. A tutorial is beyond the scope of this reference guide, which only lists the relevant
options and describes what they do.
−f (fragment packets); −−mtu (using the specified MTU)
The −f option causes the requested scan (including ping scans) to use tiny fragmented IP packets. The
idea is to split up the TCP header over several packets to make it harder for packet filters, intrusion
detection systems, and other annoyances to detect what you are doing. Be careful with this! Some
programs have trouble handling these tiny packets. The old−school sniffer named Sniffit segmentation
faulted immediately upon receiving the first fragment. Specify this option once, and Nmap splits the
packets into eight bytes or less after the IP header. So a 20−byte TCP header would be split into three
packets. Two with eight bytes of the TCP header, and one with the final four. Of course each fragment
also has an IP header. Specify −f again to use 16 bytes per fragment (reducing the number of
fragments). Or you can specify your own offset size with the −−mtu option. Don't also specify −f if
you use −−mtu. The offset must be a multiple of eight. While fragmented packets won't get by packet
filters and firewalls that queue all IP fragments, such as the CONFIG_IP_ALWAYS_DEFRAG option in
the Linux kernel, some networks can't afford the performance hit this causes and thus leave it disabled.

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Others can't enable this because fragments may take different routes into their networks. Some source
systems defragment outgoing packets in the kernel. Linux with the iptables connection tracking
module is one such example. Do a scan while a sniffer such as Wireshark is running to ensure that sent
packets are fragmented. If your host OS is causing problems, try the −−send−eth option to bypass the
IP layer and send raw ethernet frames.

Fragmentation is only supported for Nmap's raw packet features, which includes TCP and UDP port
scans (except connect scan and FTP bounce scan) and OS detection. Features such as version detection
and the Nmap Scripting Engine generally don't support fragmentation because they rely on your host's
TCP stack to communicate with target services.
−D decoy1[,decoy2][,ME][,...] (Cloak a scan with decoys)
Causes a decoy scan to be performed, which makes it appear to the remote host that the host(s) you
specify as decoys are scanning the target network too. Thus their IDS might report 5–10 port scans
from unique IP addresses, but they won't know which IP was scanning them and which were innocent
decoys. While this can be defeated through router path tracing, response−dropping, and other active
mechanisms, it is generally an effective technique for hiding your IP address.

Separate each decoy host with commas, and you can optionally use ME as one of the decoys to
represent the position for your real IP address. If you put ME in the sixth position or later, some
common port scan detectors (such as Solar Designer's excellent Scanlogd) are unlikely to show your
IP address at all. If you don't use ME, Nmap will put you in a random position. You can also use RND
to generate a random, non−reserved IP address, or RND:number to generate number addresses.

Note that the hosts you use as decoys should be up or you might accidentally SYN flood your targets.
Also it will be pretty easy to determine which host is scanning if only one is actually up on the
network. You might want to use IP addresses instead of names (so the decoy networks don't see you in
their nameserver logs). Right now random IP address generation is only supported with IPv4

Decoys are used both in the initial ping scan (using ICMP, SYN, ACK, or whatever) and during the
actual port scanning phase. Decoys are also used during remote OS detection (−O). Decoys do not
work with version detection or TCP connect scan. When a scan delay is in effect, the delay is enforced
between each batch of spoofed probes, not between each individual probe. Because decoys are sent as
a batch all at once, they may temporarily violate congestion control limits.

It is worth noting that using too many decoys may slow your scan and potentially even make it less
accurate. Also, some ISPs will filter out your spoofed packets, but many do not restrict spoofed IP
packets at all.
−S IP_Address (Spoof source address)
In some circumstances, Nmap may not be able to determine your source address (Nmap will tell you if
this is the case). In this situation, use −S with the IP address of the interface you wish to send packets
through.

Another possible use of this flag is to spoof the scan to make the targets think that someone else is
scanning them. Imagine a company being repeatedly port scanned by a competitor! The −e option and
−Pn are generally required for this sort of usage. Note that you usually won't receive reply packets
back (they will be addressed to the IP you are spoofing), so Nmap won't produce useful reports.
−e interface (Use specified interface)
Tells Nmap what interface to send and receive packets on. Nmap should be able to detect this
automatically, but it will tell you if it cannot.
−−source−port portnumber; −g portnumber (Spoof source port number)
One surprisingly common misconfiguration is to trust traffic based only on the source port number. It
is easy to understand how this comes about. An administrator will set up a shiny new firewall, only to
be flooded with complaints from ungrateful users whose applications stopped working. In particular,

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DNS may be broken because the UDP DNS replies from external servers can no longer enter the
network. FTP is another common example. In active FTP transfers, the remote server tries to establish
a connection back to the client to transfer the requested file.

Secure solutions to these problems exist, often in the form of application−level proxies or
protocol−parsing firewall modules. Unfortunately there are also easier, insecure solutions. Noting that
DNS replies come from port 53 and active FTP from port 20, many administrators have fallen into the
trap of simply allowing incoming traffic from those ports. They often assume that no attacker would
notice and exploit such firewall holes. In other cases, administrators consider this a short−term
stop−gap measure until they can implement a more secure solution. Then they forget the security
upgrade.

Overworked network administrators are not the only ones to fall into this trap. Numerous products
have shipped with these insecure rules. Even Microsoft has been guilty. The IPsec filters that shipped
with Windows 2000 and Windows XP contain an implicit rule that allows all TCP or UDP traffic from
port 88 (Kerberos). In another well−known case, versions of the Zone Alarm personal firewall up to
2.1.25 allowed any incoming UDP packets with the source port 53 (DNS) or 67 (DHCP).

Nmap offers the −g and −−source−port options (they are equivalent) to exploit these weaknesses.
Simply provide a port number and Nmap will send packets from that port where possible. Most
scanning operations that use raw sockets, including SYN and UDP scans, support the option
completely. The option notably doesn't have an effect for any operations that use normal operating
system sockets, including DNS requests, TCP connect scan, version detection, and script scanning.
Setting the source port also doesn't work for OS detection, because Nmap must use different port
numbers for certain OS detection tests to work properly.
−−data hex string (Append custom binary data to sent packets)
This option lets you include binary data as payload in sent packets. hex string may be specified in any
of the following formats: 0xAABBCCDDEEFF..., AABBCCDDEEFF... or
\xAA\xBB\xCC\xDD\xEE\xFF.... Examples of use are −−data 0xdeadbeef and −−data
\xCA\xFE\x09. Note that if you specify a number like 0x00ff no byte−order conversion is performed.
Make sure you specify the information in the byte order expected by the receiver.
−−data−string string (Append custom string to sent packets)
This option lets you include a regular string as payload in sent packets. string can contain any string.
However, note that some characters may depend on your system's locale and the receiver may not see
the same information. Also, make sure you enclose the string in double quotes and escape any special
characters from the shell. Examples: −−data−string "Scan conducted by Security Ops, extension
7192" or −−data−string "Ph34r my l33t skills". Keep in mind that nobody is likely to actually see
any comments left by this option unless they are carefully monitoring the network with a sniffer or
custom IDS rules.
−−data−length number (Append random data to sent packets)
Normally Nmap sends minimalist packets containing only a header. So its TCP packets are generally
40 bytes and ICMP echo requests are just 28. Some UDP ports and IP protocols get a custom payload
by default. This option tells Nmap to append the given number of random bytes to most of the packets
it sends, and not to use any protocol−specific payloads. (Use −−data−length 0 for no random or
protocol−specific payloads. OS detection (−O) packets are not affected because accuracy there
requires probe consistency, but most pinging and portscan packets support this. It slows things down a
little, but can make a scan slightly less conspicuous.
−−ip−options S|R [route]|L [route]|T|U ... ; −−ip−options hex string (Send packets with specified ip
options)
The IP protocol[13] offers several options which may be placed in packet headers. Unlike the
ubiquitous TCP options, IP options are rarely seen due to practicality and security concerns. In fact,
many Internet routers block the most dangerous options such as source routing. Yet options can still be
useful in some cases for determining and manipulating the network route to target machines. For

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example, you may be able to use the record route option to determine a path to a target even when
more traditional traceroute−style approaches fail. Or if your packets are being dropped by a certain
firewall, you may be able to specify a different route with the strict or loose source routing options.

The most powerful way to specify IP options is to simply pass in values as the argument to
−−ip−options. Precede each hex number with \x then the two digits. You may repeat certain characters
by following them with an asterisk and then the number of times you wish them to repeat. For
example, \x01\x07\x04\x00*36\x01 is a hex string containing 36 NUL bytes.

Nmap also offers a shortcut mechanism for specifying options. Simply pass the letter R, T, or U to
request record−route, record−timestamp, or both options together, respectively. Loose or strict source
routing may be specified with an L or S followed by a space and then a space−separated list of IP
addresses.

If you wish to see the options in packets sent and received, specify −−packet−trace. For more
information and examples of using IP options with Nmap, see
http://seclists.org/nmap-dev/2006/q3/52.
−−ttl value (Set IP time−to−live field)
Sets the IPv4 time−to−live field in sent packets to the given value.
−−randomize−hosts (Randomize target host order)
Tells Nmap to shuffle each group of up to 16384 hosts before it scans them. This can make the scans
less obvious to various network monitoring systems, especially when you combine it with slow timing
options. If you want to randomize over larger group sizes, increase PING_GROUP_SZ in nmap.h and
recompile. An alternative solution is to generate the target IP list with a list scan (−sL −n −oN
filename), randomize it with a Perl script, then provide the whole list to Nmap with −iL.
−−spoof−mac MAC address, prefix, or vendor name (Spoof MAC address)
Asks Nmap to use the given MAC address

for all of the raw ethernet frames it sends. This option implies −−send−eth to ensure that Nmap
actually sends ethernet−level packets. The MAC given can take several formats. If it is simply the
number 0, Nmap chooses a completely random MAC address for the session. If the given string is an
even number of hex digits (with the pairs optionally separated by a colon), Nmap will use those as the
MAC. If fewer than 12 hex digits are provided, Nmap fills in the remainder of the six bytes with
random values. If the argument isn't a zero or hex string, Nmap looks through nmap−mac−prefixes to
find a vendor name containing the given string (it is case insensitive). If a match is found, Nmap uses
the vendor's OUI (three−byte prefix) and fills out the remaining three bytes randomly. Valid
−−spoof−mac argument examples are Apple, 0, 01:02:03:04:05:06, deadbeefcafe, 0020F2, and Cisco.
This option only affects raw packet scans such as SYN scan or OS detection, not connection−oriented
features such as version detection or the Nmap Scripting Engine.
−−proxies Comma−separated list of proxy URLs (Relay TCP connections through a chain of proxies)
Asks Nmap to establish TCP connections with a final target through supplied chain of one or more
HTTP or SOCKS4

proxies. Proxies can help hide the true source of a scan or evade certain firewall restrictions, but they
can hamper scan performance by increasing latency. Users may need to adjust Nmap timeouts and
other scan parameters accordingly. In particular, a lower −−max−parallelism may help because some
proxies refuse to handle as many concurrent connections as Nmap opens by default.

This option takes a list of proxies as argument, expressed as URLs in the format proto://host:port. Use
commas to separate node URLs in a chain. No authentication is supported yet. Valid protocols are
HTTP and SOCKS4.

Warning: this feature is still under development and has limitations. It is implemented within the nsock

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library and thus has no effect on the ping, port scanning and OS discovery phases of a scan. Only NSE
and version scan benefit from this option so far—other features may disclose your true address. SSL
connections are not yet supported, nor is proxy−side DNS resolution (hostnames are always resolved
by Nmap).
−−badsum (Send packets with bogus TCP/UDP checksums)
Asks Nmap to use an invalid TCP, UDP or SCTP checksum for packets sent to target hosts. Since
virtually all host IP stacks properly drop these packets, any responses received are likely coming from
a firewall or IDS that didn't bother to verify the checksum. For more details on this technique, see
https://nmap.org/p60-12.html
−−adler32 (Use deprecated Adler32 instead of CRC32C for SCTP checksums)
Asks Nmap to use the deprecated Adler32 algorithm for calculating the SCTP checksum. If
−−adler32 is not given, CRC−32C (Castagnoli) is used. RFC 2960[14] originally defined Adler32 as
checksum algorithm for SCTP; RFC 4960[7] later redefined the SCTP checksums to use CRC−32C.
Current SCTP implementations should be using CRC−32C, but in order to elicit responses from old,
legacy SCTP implementations, it may be preferable to use Adler32.
OUTPUT
Any security tool is only as useful as the output it generates. Complex tests and algorithms are of little
value if they aren't presented in an organized and comprehensible fashion. Given the number of ways Nmap
is used by people and other software, no single format can please everyone. So Nmap offers several
formats, including the interactive mode for humans to read directly and XML for easy parsing by software.
In addition to offering different output formats, Nmap provides options for controlling the verbosity of
output as well as debugging messages. Output types may be sent to standard output or to named files, which
Nmap can append to or clobber. Output files may also be used to resume aborted scans.
Nmap makes output available in five different formats. The default is called interactive output, and it is sent
to standard output (stdout). There is also normal output, which is similar to interactive except that it
displays less runtime information and warnings since it is expected to be analyzed after the scan completes
rather than interactively.
XML output is one of the most important output types, as it can be converted to HTML, easily parsed by
programs such as Nmap graphical user interfaces, or imported into databases.
The two remaining output types are the simple grepable output which includes most information for a target
host on a single line, and sCRiPt KiDDi3 0utPUt for users who consider themselves |<−r4d.
While interactive output is the default and has no associated command−line options, the other four format
options use the same syntax. They take one argument, which is the filename that results should be stored in.
Multiple formats may be specified, but each format may only be specified once. For example, you may
wish to save normal output for your own review while saving XML of the same scan for programmatic
analysis. You might do this with the options −oX myscan.xml −oN myscan.nmap. While this chapter uses
the simple names like myscan.xml for brevity, more descriptive names are generally recommended. The
names chosen are a matter of personal preference, though I use long ones that incorporate the scan date and
a word or two describing the scan, placed in a directory named after the company I'm scanning.
While these options save results to files, Nmap still prints interactive output to stdout as usual. For example,
the command nmap −oX myscan.xml target prints XML to myscan.xml and fills standard output with the
same interactive results it would have printed if −oX wasn't specified at all. You can change this by passing
a hyphen character as the argument to one of the format types. This causes Nmap to deactivate interactive
output, and instead print results in the format you specified to the standard output stream. So the command
nmap −oX − target will send only XML output to stdout. Serious errors may still be printed to the normal
error stream, stderr.
Unlike some Nmap arguments, the space between the logfile option flag (such as −oX) and the filename or
hyphen is mandatory. If you omit the flags and give arguments such as −oG− or −oXscan.xml, a backwards
compatibility feature of Nmap will cause the creation of normal format output files named G− and
Xscan.xml respectively.

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All of these arguments support strftime−like conversions in the filename. %H, %M, %S, %m, %d, %y,
and %Y are all exactly the same as in strftime. %T is the same as %H%M%S, %R is the same as %H%M,
and %D is the same as %m%d%y. A % followed by any other character just yields that character (%%
gives you a percent symbol). So −oX 'scan−%T−%D.xml' will use an XML file with a name in the form
of scan−144840−121307.xml.
Nmap also offers options to control scan verbosity and to append to output files rather than clobbering
them. All of these options are described below.
Nmap Output Formats
−oN filespec (normal output)
Requests that normal output be directed to the given filename. As discussed above, this differs slightly
from interactive output.
−oX filespec (XML output)
Requests that XML output be directed to the given filename. Nmap includes a document type
definition (DTD) which allows XML parsers to validate Nmap XML output. While it is primarily
intended for programmatic use, it can also help humans interpret Nmap XML output. The DTD
defines the legal elements of the format, and often enumerates the attributes and values they can take
on. The latest version is always available from https://svn.nmap.org/nmap/docs/nmap.dtd.

XML offers a stable format that is easily parsed by software. Free XML parsers are available for all
major computer languages, including C/C++, Perl, Python, and Java. People have even written
bindings for most of these languages to handle Nmap output and execution specifically. Examples are
Nmap::Scanner[15] and Nmap::Parser[16] in Perl CPAN. In almost all cases that a non−trivial
application interfaces with Nmap, XML is the preferred format.

The XML output references an XSL stylesheet which can be used to format the results as HTML. The
easiest way to use this is simply to load the XML output in a web browser such as Firefox or IE. By
default, this will only work on the machine you ran Nmap on (or a similarly configured one) due to the
hard−coded nmap.xsl filesystem path. Use the −−webxml or −−stylesheet options to create portable
XML files that render as HTML on any web−connected machine.
−oS filespec (ScRipT KIdd|3 oUTpuT)
Script kiddie output is like interactive output, except that it is post−processed to better suit the l33t
HaXXorZ who previously looked down on Nmap due to its consistent capitalization and spelling.
Humor impaired people should note that this option is making fun of the script kiddies before flaming
me for supposedly “helping them”.
−oG filespec (grepable output)
This output format is covered last because it is deprecated. The XML output format is far more
powerful, and is nearly as convenient for experienced users. XML is a standard for which dozens of
excellent parsers are available, while grepable output is my own simple hack. XML is extensible to
support new Nmap features as they are released, while I often must omit those features from grepable
output for lack of a place to put them.

Nevertheless, grepable output is still quite popular. It is a simple format that lists each host on one line
and can be trivially searched and parsed with standard Unix tools such as grep, awk, cut, sed, diff, and
Perl. Even I usually use it for one−off tests done at the command line. Finding all the hosts with the
SSH port open or that are running Solaris takes only a simple grep to identify the hosts, piped to an
awk or cut command to print the desired fields.

Grepable output consists of comments (lines starting with a pound (#)) and target lines. A target line
includes a combination of six labeled fields, separated by tabs and followed with a colon. The fields
are Host, Ports, Protocols, Ignored State, OS, Seq Index, IP ID, and Status.

The most important of these fields is generally Ports, which gives details on each interesting port. It is

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a comma separated list of port entries. Each port entry represents one interesting port, and takes the
form of seven slash (/) separated subfields. Those subfields are: Port number, State, Protocol, Owner,
Service, SunRPC info, and Version info.

As with XML output, this man page does not allow for documenting the entire format. A more
detailed look at the Nmap grepable output format is available from
https://nmap.org/book/output-formats-grepable-output.html.
−oA basename (Output to all formats)
As a convenience, you may specify −oA basename to store scan results in normal, XML, and grepable
formats at once. They are stored in basename.nmap, basename.xml, and basename.gnmap,
respectively. As with most programs, you can prefix the filenames with a directory path, such as
˜/nmaplogs/foocorp/ on Unix or c:\hacking\sco on Windows.
Verbosity and debugging options
−v (Increase verbosity level), −vlevel (Set verbosity level)
Increases the verbosity level, causing Nmap to print more information about the scan in progress.
Open ports are shown as they are found and completion time estimates are provided when Nmap
thinks a scan will take more than a few minutes. Use it twice or more for even greater verbosity: −vv,
or give a verbosity level directly, for example −v3.

Most changes only affect interactive output, and some also affect normal and script kiddie output. The
other output types are meant to be processed by machines, so Nmap can give substantial detail by
default in those formats without fatiguing a human user. However, there are a few changes in other
modes where output size can be reduced substantially by omitting some detail. For example, a
comment line in the grepable output that provides a list of all ports scanned is only printed in verbose
mode because it can be quite long.
−d (Increase debugging level), −dlevel (Set debugging level)
When even verbose mode doesn't provide sufficient data for you, debugging is available to flood you
with much more! As with the verbosity option (−v), debugging is enabled with a command−line flag
(−d) and the debug level can be increased by specifying it multiple times, as in −dd, or by setting a
level directly. For example, −d9 sets level nine. That is the highest effective level and will produce
thousands of lines unless you run a very simple scan with very few ports and targets.

Debugging output is useful when a bug is suspected in Nmap, or if you are simply confused as to what
Nmap is doing and why. As this feature is mostly intended for developers, debug lines aren't always
self−explanatory. You may get something like: Timeout vals: srtt: −1 rttvar: −1 to: 1000000 delta
14987 ==> srtt: 14987 rttvar: 14987 to: 100000. If you don't understand a line, your only recourses are
to ignore it, look it up in the source code, or request help from the development list (nmap−dev).
Some lines are self explanatory, but the messages become more obscure as the debug level is
increased.
−−reason (Host and port state reasons)
Shows the reason each port is set to a specific state and the reason each host is up or down. This option
displays the type of the packet that determined a port or hosts state. For example, A RST packet from a
closed port or an echo reply from an alive host. The information Nmap can provide is determined by
the type of scan or ping. The SYN scan and SYN ping (−sS and −PS) are very detailed, but the TCP
connect scan (−sT) is limited by the implementation of the connect system call. This feature is
automatically enabled by the debug option (−d) and the results are stored in XML log files even if this
option is not specified.
−−stats−every time (Print periodic timing stats)
Periodically prints a timing status message after each interval of time. The time is a specification of the
kind described in the section called “TIMING AND PERFORMANCE”; so for example, use
−−stats−every 10s to get a status update every 10 seconds. Updates are printed to interactive output
(the screen) and XML output.

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−−packet−trace (Trace packets and data sent and received)

Causes Nmap to print a summary of every packet sent or received. This is often used for debugging,
but is also a valuable way for new users to understand exactly what Nmap is doing under the covers.
To avoid printing thousands of lines, you may want to specify a limited number of ports to scan, such
as −p20−30. If you only care about the goings on of the version detection subsystem, use
−−version−trace instead. If you only care about script tracing, specify −−script−trace. With
−−packet−trace, you get all of the above.
−−open (Show only open (or possibly open) ports)
Sometimes you only care about ports you can actually connect to (open ones), and don't want results
cluttered with closed, filtered, and closed|filtered ports. Output customization is normally done after
the scan using tools such as grep, awk, and Perl, but this feature was added due to overwhelming
requests. Specify −−open to only see hosts with at least one open, open|filtered, or unfiltered port, and
only see ports in those states. These three states are treated just as they normally are, which means that
open|filtered and unfiltered may be condensed into counts if there are an overwhelming number of
them.
−−iflist (List interfaces and routes)
Prints the interface list and system routes as detected by Nmap. This is useful for debugging routing
problems or device mischaracterization (such as Nmap treating a PPP connection as ethernet).
Miscellaneous output options
−−append−output (Append to rather than clobber output files)
When you specify a filename to an output format flag such as −oX or −oN, that file is overwritten by
default. If you prefer to keep the existing content of the file and append the new results, specify the
−−append−output option. All output filenames specified in that Nmap execution will then be
appended to rather than clobbered. This doesn't work well for XML (−oX) scan data as the resultant
file generally won't parse properly until you fix it up by hand.
−−resume filename (Resume aborted scan)
Some extensive Nmap runs take a very long time—on the order of days. Such scans don't always run
to completion. Restrictions may prevent Nmap from being run during working hours, the network
could go down, the machine Nmap is running on might suffer a planned or unplanned reboot, or Nmap
itself could crash. The administrator running Nmap could cancel it for any other reason as well, by
pressing ctrl−C. Restarting the whole scan from the beginning may be undesirable. Fortunately, if
normal (−oN) or grepable (−oG) logs were kept, the user can ask Nmap to resume scanning with the
target it was working on when execution ceased. Simply specify the −−resume option and pass the
normal/grepable output file as its argument. No other arguments are permitted, as Nmap parses the
output file to use the same ones specified previously. Simply call Nmap as nmap −−resume
logfilename. Nmap will append new results to the data files specified in the previous execution.
Resumption does not support the XML output format because combining the two runs into one valid
XML file would be difficult.
−−stylesheet path or URL (Set XSL stylesheet to transform XML output)
Nmap ships with an XSL stylesheet named nmap.xsl for viewing or translating XML output to HTML.
The XML output includes an xml−stylesheet directive which points to nmap.xml where it was initially
installed by Nmap. Run the XML file through an XSLT processor such as xsltproc[17] to produce an
HTML file. Directly opening the XML file in a browser no longer works well because modern
browsers limit the locations a stylesheet may be loaded from. If you wish to use a different stylesheet,
specify it as the argument to −−stylesheet. You must pass the full pathname or URL. One common
invocation is −−stylesheet https://nmap.org/svn/docs/nmap.xsl. This tells an XSLT processor to load
the latest version of the stylesheet from Nmap.Org. The −−webxml option does the same thing with
less typing and memorization. Loading the XSL from Nmap.Org makes it easier to view results on a
machine that doesn't have Nmap (and thus nmap.xsl) installed. So the URL is often more useful, but
the local filesystem location of nmap.xsl is used by default for privacy reasons.
−−webxml (Load stylesheet from Nmap.Org)
This is a convenience option, nothing more than an alias for −−stylesheet

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https://nmap.org/svn/docs/nmap.xsl.
−−no−stylesheet (Omit XSL stylesheet declaration from XML)
Specify this option to prevent Nmap from associating any XSL stylesheet with its XML output. The
xml−stylesheet directive is omitted.
MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS
This section describes some important (and not−so−important) options that don't really fit anywhere else.
−6 (Enable IPv6 scanning)
Nmap has IPv6 support for its most popular features. Ping scanning, port scanning, version detection,
and the Nmap Scripting Engine all support IPv6. The command syntax is the same as usual except that
you also add the −6 option. Of course, you must use IPv6 syntax if you specify an address rather than
a hostname. An address might look like 3ffe:7501:4819:2000:210:f3ff:fe03:14d0, so hostnames are
recommended. The output looks the same as usual, with the IPv6 address on the “interesting ports”
line being the only IPv6 giveaway.

While IPv6 hasn't exactly taken the world by storm, it gets significant use in some (usually Asian)
countries and most modern operating systems support it. To use Nmap with IPv6, both the source and
target of your scan must be configured for IPv6. If your ISP (like most of them) does not allocate IPv6
addresses to you, free tunnel brokers are widely available and work fine with Nmap. I use the free
IPv6 tunnel broker service at http://www.tunnelbroker.net. Other tunnel brokers are listed at
Wikipedia[18]. 6to4 tunnels are another popular, free approach.

On Windows, raw−socket IPv6 scans are supported only on ethernet devices (not tunnels), and only on
Windows Vista and later. Use the −−unprivileged option in other situations.
−A (Aggressive scan options)
This option enables additional advanced and aggressive options. Presently this enables OS detection
(−O), version scanning (−sV), script scanning (−sC) and traceroute (−−traceroute). More features
may be added in the future. The point is to enable a comprehensive set of scan options without people
having to remember a large set of flags. However, because script scanning with the default set is
considered intrusive, you should not use −A against target networks without permission. This option
only enables features, and not timing options (such as −T4) or verbosity options (−v) that you might
want as well. Options which require privileges (e.g. root access) such as OS detection and traceroute
will only be enabled if those privileges are available.
−−datadir directoryname (Specify custom Nmap data file location)
Nmap obtains some special data at runtime in files named nmap−service−probes, nmap−services,
nmap−protocols, nmap−rpc, nmap−mac−prefixes, and nmap−os−db. If the location of any of these
files has been specified (using the −−servicedb or −−versiondb options), that location is used for that
file. After that, Nmap searches these files in the directory specified with the −−datadir option (if any).
Any files not found there, are searched for in the directory specified by the NMAPDIR environment
variable. Next comes ˜/.nmap for real and effective UIDs; or on Windows,
HOME\AppData\Roaming\nmap (where HOME is the user's home directory, like C:\Users\user). This
is followed by the location of the nmap executable and the same location with ../share/nmap appended.
Then a compiled−in location such as /usr/local/share/nmap or /usr/share/nmap.
−−servicedb services file (Specify custom services file)
Asks Nmap to use the specified services file rather than the nmap−services data file that comes with
Nmap. Using this option also causes a fast scan (−F) to be used. See the description for −−datadir for
more information on Nmap's data files.
−−versiondb service probes file (Specify custom service probes file)
Asks Nmap to use the specified service probes file rather than the nmap−service−probes data file that
comes with Nmap. See the description for −−datadir for more information on Nmap's data files.
−−send−eth (Use raw ethernet sending)
Asks Nmap to send packets at the raw ethernet (data link) layer rather than the higher IP (network)

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layer. By default, Nmap chooses the one which is generally best for the platform it is running on. Raw
sockets (IP layer) are generally most efficient for Unix machines, while ethernet frames are required
for Windows operation since Microsoft disabled raw socket support. Nmap still uses raw IP packets on
Unix despite this option when there is no other choice (such as non−ethernet connections).
−−send−ip (Send at raw IP level)
Asks Nmap to send packets via raw IP sockets rather than sending lower level ethernet frames. It is the
complement to the −−send−eth option discussed previously.
−−privileged (Assume that the user is fully privileged)
Tells Nmap to simply assume that it is privileged enough to perform raw socket sends, packet sniffing,
and similar operations that usually require root privileges on Unix systems. By default Nmap quits if
such operations are requested but geteuid is not zero. −−privileged is useful with Linux kernel
capabilities and similar systems that may be configured to allow unprivileged users to perform
raw−packet scans. Be sure to provide this option flag before any flags for options that require
privileges (SYN scan, OS detection, etc.). The NMAP_PRIVILEGED environment variable may be
set as an equivalent alternative to −−privileged.
−−unprivileged (Assume that the user lacks raw socket privileges)
This option is the opposite of −−privileged. It tells Nmap to treat the user as lacking network raw
socket and sniffing privileges. This is useful for testing, debugging, or when the raw network
functionality of your operating system is somehow broken. The NMAP_UNPRIVILEGED
environment variable may be set as an equivalent alternative to −−unprivileged.
−−release−memory (Release memory before quitting)
This option is only useful for memory−leak debugging. It causes Nmap to release allocated memory
just before it quits so that actual memory leaks are easier to spot. Normally Nmap skips this as the OS
does this anyway upon process termination.
−V; −−version (Print version number)
Prints the Nmap version number and exits.
−h; −−help (Print help summary page)
Prints a short help screen with the most common command flags. Running Nmap without any
arguments does the same thing.
RUNTIME INTERACTION
During the execution of Nmap, all key presses are captured. This allows you to interact with the program
without aborting and restarting it. Certain special keys will change options, while any other keys will print
out a status message telling you about the scan. The convention is that lowercase letters increase the
amount of printing, and uppercase letters decrease the printing. You may also press ‘?’ for help.
v/V
Increase / decrease the verbosity level
d/D
Increase / decrease the debugging Level
p/P
Turn on / off packet tracing
?
Print a runtime interaction help screen
Anything else
Print out a status message like this:

Stats: 0:00:07 elapsed; 20 hosts completed (1 up), 1 undergoing Service Scan

Service scan Timing: About 33.33% done; ETC: 20:57 (0:00:12 remaining)

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EXAMPLES
Here are some Nmap usage examples, from the simple and routine to a little more complex and esoteric.
Some actual IP addresses and domain names are used to make things more concrete. In their place you
should substitute addresses/names from your own network. While I don't think port scanning other
networks is or should be illegal, some network administrators don't appreciate unsolicited scanning of their
networks and may complain. Getting permission first is the best approach.
For testing purposes, you have permission to scan the host scanme.nmap.org. This permission only
includes scanning via Nmap and not testing exploits or denial of service attacks. To conserve bandwidth,
please do not initiate more than a dozen scans against that host per day. If this free scanning target service
is abused, it will be taken down and Nmap will report Failed to resolve given hostname/IP:
scanme.nmap.org. These permissions also apply to the hosts scanme2.nmap.org, scanme3.nmap.org, and so
on, though those hosts do not currently exist.
nmap −v scanme.nmap.org
This option scans all reserved TCP ports on the machine scanme.nmap.org . The −v option enables verbose
mode.
nmap −sS −O scanme.nmap.org/24

Launches a stealth SYN scan against each machine that is up out of the 256 IPs on the class C sized
network where Scanme resides. It also tries to determine what operating system is running on each host that
is up and running. This requires root privileges because of the SYN scan and OS detection.
nmap −sV −p 22,53,110,143,4564 198.116.0−255.1−127
Launches host enumeration and a TCP scan at the first half of each of the 255 possible eight−bit subnets in
the 198.116 class B address space. This tests whether the systems run SSH, DNS, POP3, or IMAP on their
standard ports, or anything on port 4564. For any of these ports found open, version detection is used to
determine what application is running.
nmap −v −iR 100000 −Pn −p 80

Asks Nmap to choose 100,000 hosts at random and scan them for web servers (port 80). Host enumeration
is disabled with −Pn since first sending a couple probes to determine whether a host is up is wasteful when
you are only probing one port on each target host anyway.
nmap −Pn −p80 −oX logs/pb−port80scan.xml −oG logs/pb−port80scan.gnmap 216.163.128.20/20

This scans 4096 IPs for any web servers (without pinging them) and saves the output in grepable and XML
formats.
NMAP BOOK
While this reference guide details all material Nmap options, it can't fully demonstrate how to apply those
features to quickly solve real−world tasks. For that, we released Nmap Network Scanning: The Official
Nmap Project Guide to Network Discovery and Security Scanning. Topics include subverting firewalls and
intrusion detection systems, optimizing Nmap performance, and automating common networking tasks
with the Nmap Scripting Engine. Hints and instructions are provided for common Nmap tasks such as
taking network inventory, penetration testing, detecting rogue wireless access points, and quashing network
worm outbreaks. Examples and diagrams show actual communication on the wire. More than half of the
book is available free online. See https://nmap.org/book for more information.
BUGS
Like its author, Nmap isn't perfect. But you can help make it better by sending bug reports or even writing
patches. If Nmap doesn't behave the way you expect, first upgrade to the latest version available from
https://nmap.org. If the problem persists, do some research to determine whether it has already been
discovered and addressed. Try searching for the problem or error message on Google since that aggregates
so many forums. If nothing comes of this, create an Issue on our tracker (http://issues.nmap.org) and/or

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mail a bug report to <[email protected]>. If you subscribe to the nmap−dev list before posting, your message
will bypass moderation and get through more quickly. Subscribe at
https://nmap.org/mailman/listinfo/dev. Please include everything you have learned about the problem, as
well as what version of Nmap you are using and what operating system version it is running on. Other
suggestions for improving Nmap may be sent to the Nmap dev mailing list as well.
If you are able to write a patch improving Nmap or fixing a bug, that is even better! Instructions for
submitting patches or git pull requests are available from
https://github.com/nmap/nmap/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
Particularly sensitive issues such as a security reports may be sent directly to Nmap's author Fyodor directly
at <[email protected]>. All other reports and comments should use the dev list or issue tracker instead
because more people read, follow, and respond to those.
AUTHORS
Gordon “Fyodor” Lyon <[email protected]> wrote and released Nmap in 1997. Since then, hundreds of
people have made valuable contributions, as detailed in the CHANGELOG file distributed with Nmap and
also available from https://nmap.org/changelog.html. David Fifield and Daniel Miller deserve special
recognition for their enormous multi−year contributions!
LEGAL NOTICES
Nmap Copyright and Licensing
The Nmap Security Scanner is (C) 1996–2018 Insecure.Com LLC ("The Nmap Project"). Nmap is also a
registered trademark of the Nmap Project. This program free software; you may redistribute and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
Version 2 (“GPL”), BUT ONLY WITH ALL OF THE CLARIFICATIONS AND EXCEPTIONS
DESCRIBED HEREIN. This guarantees your right to use, modify, and redistribute this software under
certain conditions. If you wish to embed Nmap technology into proprietary software, we sell alternative
licenses (contact <[email protected]>). Dozens of software vendors already license Nmap technology such
as host discovery, port scanning, OS detection, version detection, and the Nmap Scripting Engine.
Note that the GPL places important restrictions on “derivative works”, yet it does not provide a detailed
definition of that term. To avoid misunderstandings, we interpret that term as broadly as copyright law
allows. For example, we consider an application to constitute a derivative work for the purpose of this
license if it does any of the following with any software or content covered by this license (“Covered
Software”):
• Integrates source code from Covered Software.
• Reads or includes copyrighted data files, such as Nmap's nmap−os−db or nmap−service−probes.
• Is designed specifically to execute Covered Software and parse the results (as opposed to typical
shell or execution−menu apps, which will execute anything you tell them to).
• Includes Covered Software in a proprietary executable installer. The installers produced by
InstallShield are an example of this. Including Nmap with other software in compressed or archival
form does not trigger this provision, provided appropriate open source decompression or
de−archiving software is widely available for no charge. For the purposes of this license, an
installer is considered to include Covered Software even if it actually retrieves a copy of Covered
Software from another source during runtime (such as by downloading it from the Internet).
• Links (statically or dynamically) to a library which does any of the above.
• Executes a helper program, module, or script to do any of the above.
This list is not exclusive, but is meant to clarify our interpretation of derived works with some common
examples. Other people may interpret the plain GPL differently, so we consider this a special exception to
the GPL that we apply to Covered Software. Works which meet any of these conditions must conform to all
of the terms of this license, particularly including the GPL Section 3 requirements of providing source code
and allowing free redistribution of the work as a whole.
As another special exception to the GPL terms, the Nmap Project grants permission to link the code of this

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program with any version of the OpenSSL library which is distributed under a license identical to that listed
in the included docs/licenses/OpenSSL.txt file, and distribute linked combinations including the two.
The Nmap Project has permission to redistribute Npcap, a packet capturing driver and library for the
Microsoft Windows platform. Npcap is a separate work with it's own license rather than this Nmap license.
Since the Npcap license does not permit redistribution without special permission, our Nmap Windows
binary packages which contain Npcap may not be redistributed without special permission.
Any redistribution of Covered Software, including any derived works, must obey and carry forward all of
the terms of this license, including obeying all GPL rules and restrictions. For example, source code of the
whole work must be provided and free redistribution must be allowed. All GPL references to "this
License", are to be treated as including the terms and conditions of this license text as well.
Because this license imposes special exceptions to the GPL, Covered Work may not be combined (even as
part of a larger work) with plain GPL software. The terms, conditions, and exceptions of this license must
be included as well. This license is incompatible with some other open source licenses as well. In some
cases we can relicense portions of Nmap or grant special permissions to use it in other open source
software. Please contact [email protected] with any such requests. Similarly, we don't incorporate
incompatible open source software into Covered Software without special permission from the copyright
holders.
If you have any questions about the licensing restrictions on using Nmap in other works, we are happy to
help. As mentioned above, we also offer an alternative license to integrate Nmap into proprietary
applications and appliances. These contracts have been sold to dozens of software vendors, and generally
include a perpetual license as well as providing support and updates. They also fund the continued
development of Nmap. Please email <[email protected]> for further information.
If you have received a written license agreement or contract for Covered Software stating terms other than
these, you may choose to use and redistribute Covered Software under those terms instead of these.
Creative Commons License for this Nmap Guide
This Nmap Reference Guide is (C) 2005–2018 Insecure.Com LLC. It is hereby placed under version 3.0 of
the Creative Commons Attribution License[19]. This allows you redistribute and modify the work as you
desire, as long as you credit the original source. Alternatively, you may choose to treat this document as
falling under the same license as Nmap itself (discussed previously).
Source Code Availability and Community Contributions
Source is provided to this software because we believe users have a right to know exactly what a program is
going to do before they run it. This also allows you to audit the software for security holes.
Source code also allows you to port Nmap to new platforms, fix bugs, and add new features. You are highly
encouraged to send your changes to <[email protected]> for possible incorporation into the main distribution.
By sending these changes to Fyodor or one of the Insecure.Org development mailing lists, it is assumed that
you are offering the Nmap Project the unlimited, non−exclusive right to reuse, modify, and relicense the
code. Nmap will always be available open source, but this is important because the inability to relicense
code has caused devastating problems for other Free Software projects (such as KDE and NASM). We also
occasionally relicense the code to third parties as discussed above. If you wish to specify special license
conditions of your contributions, just say so when you send them.
No Warranty
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without
even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See
the GNU General Public License v2.0 for more details at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html, or in
the COPYING file included with Nmap.
It should also be noted that Nmap has occasionally been known to crash poorly written applications,
TCP/IP stacks, and even operating systems. While this is extremely rare, it is important to keep in mind.
Nmap should never be run against mission critical systems unless you are prepared to suffer downtime. We
acknowledge here that Nmap may crash your systems or networks and we disclaim all liability for any
damage or problems Nmap could cause.

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Inappropriate Usage
Because of the slight risk of crashes and because a few black hats like to use Nmap for reconnaissance prior
to attacking systems, there are administrators who become upset and may complain when their system is
scanned. Thus, it is often advisable to request permission before doing even a light scan of a network.
Nmap should never be installed with special privileges (e.g. suid root). That would open up a major
security vulnerability as other users on the system (or attackers) could use it for privilege escalation.
Third−Party Software and Funding Notices
This product includes software developed by the Apache Software Foundation[20]. A modified version of
the Libpcap portable packet capture library[21] is distributed along with Nmap. The Windows version of
Nmap utilizes the Libpcap−derived Ncap library[22] instead. Regular expression support is provided by the
PCRE library[23], which is open−source software, written by Philip Hazel. Certain raw networking
functions use the Libdnet[24] networking library, which was written by Dug Song. A modified version is
distributed with Nmap. Nmap can optionally link with the OpenSSL cryptography toolkit[25] for SSL
version detection support. The Nmap Scripting Engine uses an embedded version of the Lua
programming language[26]. The Liblinear linear classification library[27] is used for our IPv6 OS
detection machine learning techniques[28].

All of the third−party software described in this paragraph is freely redistributable under BSD−style
software licenses.
Binary packages for Windows and Mac OS X include support libraries necessary to run Zenmap and Ndiff
with Python and PyGTK. (Unix platforms commonly make these libraries easy to install, so they are not
part of the packages.) A listing of these support libraries and their licenses is included in the LICENSES
files.
This software was supported in part through the Google Summer of Code[29] and the DARPA CINDER
program[30] (DARPA−BAA−10−84).
United States Export Control
Nmap only uses encryption when compiled with the optional OpenSSL support and linked with OpenSSL.
When compiled without OpenSSL support, the Nmap Project believes that Nmap is not subject to U.S.
Export Administration Regulations (EAR)[31] export control. As such, there is no applicable ECCN
(export control classification number) and exportation does not require any special license, permit, or other
governmental authorization.
When compiled with OpenSSL support or distributed as source code, the Nmap Project believes that Nmap
falls under U.S. ECCN 5D002[32] (“Information Security Software”). We distribute Nmap under the TSU
exception for publicly available encryption software defined in EAR 740.13(e)[33].
NOTES
1. Nmap Network Scanning: The Official Nmap Project Guide to Network Discovery and Security
Scanning
https://nmap.org/book/
2. RFC 1122
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1122.txt
3. RFC 792
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc792.txt
4. RFC 950
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc950.txt
5. RFC 1918
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1918.txt
6. UDP
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc768.txt

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7. SCTP
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4960.txt
8. TCP RFC
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc793.txt
9. RFC 959
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc959.txt
10. RFC 1323
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1323.txt
11. Lua programming language
http://lua.org
12. precedence
http://www.lua.org/manual/5.1/manual.html#2.5.3
13. IP protocol
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc791.txt
14. RFC 2960
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2960.txt
15. Nmap::Scanner
http://sourceforge.net/projects/nmap-scanner/
16. Nmap::Parser
http://nmapparser.wordpress.com/
17. xsltproc
http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT/
18. listed at Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IPv6_tunnel_brokers
19. Creative Commons Attribution License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
20. Apache Software Foundation
http://www.apache.org
21. Libpcap portable packet capture library
http://www.tcpdump.org
22. Ncap library
https://npcap.org
23. PCRE library
http://www.pcre.org
24. Libdnet
http://libdnet.sourceforge.net
25. OpenSSL cryptography toolkit
http://www.openssl.org
26. Lua programming language
http://www.lua.org
27. Liblinear linear classification library
http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/˜cjlin/liblinear/
28. IPv6 OS detection machine learning techniques
https://nmap.org/book/osdetect-guess.html#osdetect-guess-ipv6
29. Google Summer of Code
https://nmap.org/soc/

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30. DARPA CINDER program

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=585e02a51f77af5cb3c9e06b9cc82c48&tab=core&_cview=1
31. Export Administration Regulations (EAR)
http://www.access.gpo.gov/bis/ear/ear_data.html
32. 5D002
https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/documents/regulations-docs/federal-register-notices/federal-register-2014/951-ccl5-pt
33. EAR 740.13(e)
http://www.access.gpo.gov/bis/ear/pdf/740.pdf

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