Nmap Reference Guide (Man Page)

-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.

-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 -sS -PS80 -iR 0 -p 80 to locate random web servers for browsing.

--exclude <host1[,host2][,host3],...> (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 subnetworks 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.

-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 -P0 option.

-sP (Ping Scan)

This option tells Nmap to only perform a ping scan (host discovery), then print out the available hosts that responded to the scan. No further testing (such as port scanning or OS detection) is performed. This is 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 -sP option sends an ICMP echo request and a TCP packet to port 80 by default. When executed by an unprivileged user, a SYN packet is sent (using a connect() call) to port 80 on the target. When a privileged user tries to scan targets on a local ethernet network, ARP requests (-PR) are used unless --send-ip was specified. The -sP option can be combined with any of the discovery probe types (the -P* options, excluding -P0) for greater flexibility. If any of those probe type and port number options are used, the default probes (ACK and echo request) are overridden. When strict firewalls are in place between the source host 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.

-P0 (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 -P0 causes Nmap to attempt the requested scanning functions against every target IP address specified. So if a class B sized target address space (/16) is specified on the command line, all 65,536 IP addresses are scanned. That second option character in -P0 is a zero and not the letter O. 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.

-PS [portlist] (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 in nmap.h), but an alternate port can be specified as a parameter. A comma separated list of ports can even be specified (e.g. -PS22,23,25,80,113,1050,35000), in which case probes will be attempted against each port 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 3-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 3-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. This workaround is also used for IPv6 connections, as raw IPv6 packet building support is not yet available in Nmap.

-PA [portlist] (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, or an IPv6 target is specified, the connect() workaround discussed previously is used. This workaround is imperfect because connect() is actually sending a 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 [portlist] (UDP Ping)

Another host discovery option is the UDP ping, which sends an empty (unless --data-length is specified) UDP packet to the given ports. The portlist takes the same format as with the previously discussed -PS and -PA options. If no ports are specified, the default is 31338. This default can be configured at compile-time by changing DEFAULT_UDP_PROBE_PORT 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 31338, which is highly unlikely to be in use. A few services, such as chargen, 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.

-PE; -PP; -PM (ICMP Ping Types)

In addition to the unusual TCP and UDP 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. 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 standard (RFC 792) also specifies 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 admins specifically block echo request packets while forgetting that other ICMP queries can be used for the same purpose.

-PR (ARP Ping)

One of the most common Nmap usage scenarios is to scan an ethernet LAN. On most LANs, especially those using RFC1918-blessed private address ranges, 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 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 --send-ip.

-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.

--system-dns (Use system DNS resolver)

By default, Nmap 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 IPv6 scans.

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

By default Nmap will try to determine 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 or an IPv6 scan. 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.

The six port states recognized by Nmap

open

An application is actively accepting TCP connections or UDP packets 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.

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 IPID Idle scan.

-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 intrusive firewalls. SYN scan is relatively unobtrusive and stealthy, since it never completes TCP connections. It also 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 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 1,2, 3, 9, 10, or 13) is received.

-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 or is scanning IPv6 networks. 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 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 an empty (no data) UDP header to every targeted port. If an ICMP port unreachable error (type 3, code 3) is returned, the port is closed. Other ICMP unreachable errors (type 3, codes 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. Versions scan (-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 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.

-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 to differentiate between open and closed ports. Page 65 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 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)

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 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 1000 open ports and 3 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 (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.

-sI <zombie host[:probeport]> (Idlescan)

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 http://insecure.org/nmap/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 IPID 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 nmap-hackers mailing list. 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 8-bit IP protocol field. The headers are usually empty, containing no data and not even the proper header for the claimed protocol. The three exceptions are TCP, UDP, and ICMP. 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 Other ICMP unreachable errors (type 3, code 1, 3, 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

-sB <engine://[user:pass@]host[:port] ...> (scan through proxy chain)

Other nmap's scannig engines send packets directly to target to know whether the port is opened or closed (except idle scan). This engine allows you to abuse applications, like www proxy or ftp servers, for port scanning purposes. In argument you can select many definitions of hops which will create proxy chain. In each definition you can use different engine, but your middle hops must support tunneling. Scans are performed only from the last proxy in the chain. You may omit username and password in which case engine tries to use no password or it's default parameters (for ftpbounce it's user:anonymous password:-wwwuser@). If you omit port field, nmap will use standard port for this engine. In the engine field you can use aliases for engines, you are also allowed omit double slashes in definition. Colon,'@' char and space are separators in proxy list and you can't use them directly in username, password or hostname. Please use c-like hex notation, '\x3A' as colon, '\x20' for space and '\x40' for '@' char. In host field, ipv6 addresses should be put in square brackets.

All target names are resolved using default nmap methods. Hovewer the best way to remain anonymous is to leave dns resolution to last hop in chain and make sure that no direct packets from our ip will be send to target. Nmap doesn't support this dns resolution method. We use local dns resolution because it solves some problems. For example when target has multiple ip's the one to be scanned is selected locally. We don't leave freedom of choose to remote side. It's definetely good thing when you know who you scan :) When creating chain longer than one hop, nmap if trying to pass hostname of next hop rather than it's ip. If you select "httpconnect://firsthop httpconnect://secondhop" the resolution of 'secondhop' will be left to 'firsthop' host. If you're freaky about remaining anonymous you can select targets by ip rather than by hostname and use '-n' option to prevent target rdns queries and local resolution of any proxy hosts in chain.

Unfortunetaly scanning hosts through proxies isn't the fastest possible method. To make scans faster you can use --max-parallelism option.

Proxy scanning engine, like other nmap's scanning engines, tries to optimally use timing information. For example if infomation about closed port was received in 140ms, there is no need of waiting 30 seconds for filtered ports. Proxy scanning engine use advanced algoritms to count apropriate timeout. Proxy scanner doesn't do any reties for ports marked as filtered. That's why it uses 4 times bigger timeout than counted value. There is always a risk of marking port as filtered instead of it's real state. This can be caused by bug in code, strange time information or slow chain. If it's possible to reproduce this situation, please report bug to nmap-dev list. As temporary fix you can set bigger timeouts using -T or --min-rtt-timeout options.

Availbe scanning engines for -sB option:

httpconnect (aliases: 'httpc', 'hc'; default port: 8080)

Abuse web proxy server using http CONNECT metheod. This engine allows to create tunneled connection to target, and can be used as middle hop. You can use ipv6 protocol using this engine, remember that your proxy-server must support it. If you select username and password it will use in Proxy-Authorization Basic header.

httpget (aliases: 'httpg', 'hg'; default port: 8080)

Abuse web proxy server using http GET metheod. This engine is shares implementation with 'httpconnect' engine. Though, it doesn't support tunneling.

socks4a (aliases: 'socks4', 's4', 's4a'; default port: 9050)

Use socks v4 or v4a server to create connection. Using dns records rather than raw ip will force use of socks 4a protocol. Authorization is based on ident. See RFC 1413 for details.

ftpbounce (aliases: 'ftpb', 'ftp, 'fb'; default port: 21)

An interesting feature of the FTP protocol RFC 959 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 organizational FTP servers are often placed where they have more access to other internal hosts than any old Internet host would.

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 open port 21 (or even for any ftp services if you scan all ports with version detection), then try a bounce scan using each. 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.

imap (alias: 'im'; default port: 143)

In the beginning of 2006 Casek reported that of uw-imapd server can be abused for port scanning. It's possible that also other imap servers are vulnerable. As for August'06 this bug hasn't been fixed. See Casek's mail for details. Supported is only plaintext authorization. Though normal installations of uw-imapd forbids using plaintext auth over not-encrypted socket. See 'imaps' engine.

imaps (aliases: 'imapssl', 'is'; default port: 993)

This engine is the same as 'imap' but tries to connect through secure channel.

--proxy-reuse <N> (try to reuse connection maximum N times, while doing scan through proxy chain)

By default, proxy scanning engine will try to use one connection to scan more than one port (on engines that allow this). Though, some servers have broken implementation of this 'keep-alive' feature. For example some ftp daemons will hang while scanning filtered ports and that connection can't be used any more. In such case you should select 0 in this parameter to prevent reusing risky connections. Currently this option affects only ftpbounce and httpget scans.

-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 both TCP and UDP ports, you can specify a particular protocol by preceding the port numbers by T: or U:. 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 & 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.

-F (Fast (limited port) scan)

Specifies that you only wish to scan for ports listed in the nmap-services file which comes with nmap (or the protocols file for -sO). This is much faster than scanning all 65535 ports on a host. Because this list contains so many TCP ports (more than 1200), the speed difference from a default TCP scan (about 1650 ports) isn't dramatic. The difference can be enormous if you specify your own tiny nmap-services file using the --datadir option.

-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 port scanning instead.

-sV (Version detection)

Enables version detection, as discussed above. Alternatively, you can use -A to enable both OS detection and version detection.

--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 1 and 9. 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.

-sR (RPC scan)

This method works in conjunction with the various port scan methods of Nmap. It takes all the TCP/UDP ports found open 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. This is automatically enabled as part of version scan (-sV) if you request that. As version detection includes this and is much more comprehensive, -sR is rarely needed.

-O (Enable OS detection)

Enables OS detection, as discussed above. Alternatively, you can use -A to enable both OS detection and version detection.

--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 -P0 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.

--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.

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 1 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 ten 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. This can be useful in combination with --scan-delay (discussed later), although the latter usually serves the purpose well enough by itself.

--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.

Specifying a lower --max-rtt-timeout and --initial-rtt-timeout than the defaults can cut scan times significantly. This is particularly true for pingless (-P0) 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 is a reasonable aggressive --max-rtt-timeout 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 hping2 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 100ms, no matter what the ping times are. Nor do I exceed 1000ms.

--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 lengthen 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 rarely recommended.

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 amoung of time you are willing to wait. I often 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 as well, 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.

--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 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. 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).

--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 nonresponsive ports as open) by specifying --defeat-rst-ratelimit.

Using this option can reduce accuracy, as some ports will appear nonresponse 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 optional is useful when you only care about open ports, and distinguishing between closed and filtered ports isn't worth the extra time.

-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. So 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 10ms for TCP ports and -T5 caps that value at 5 milliseconds. Templates can be used in combination with fine grained controls, and the fine-grained controls will 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. T4 does the equivalent of --max-rtt-timeout 1250 --initial-rtt-timeout 500 --max-retries 6 and sets the maximum TCP scan delay to 10 milliseconds. T5 does the equivalent of --max-rtt-timeout 300 --min-rtt-timeout 50 --initial-rtt-timeout 250 --max-retries 2 --host-timeout 15m as well as setting the maximum TCP scan delay to 5ms.

-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 8 bytes or less after the IP header. So a 20-byte TCP header would be split into 3 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 8. 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. 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 Ethereal 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.

-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 6th 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.

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).

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.

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 would generally be required for this sort of usage, and -P0 would normally be advisable as well.

-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 complains from ungrateful users whose applications stopped working. In particular, 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 admins 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, admins 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. Nmap must use different port numbers for certain OS detection tests to work properly, and DNS requests ignore the --source-port flag because Nmap relies on system libraries to handle those. Most TCP scans, including SYN scan, support the option completely, as does UDP scan.

--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. This option tells Nmap to append the given number of random bytes to most of the packets it sends. 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.

--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 8096 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 string “0”, Nmap chooses a completely random MAC 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 less than 12 hex digits are provided, Nmap fills in the remainder of the 6 bytes with random values. If the argument isn't a 0 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 (3-byte prefix) and fills out the remaining 3 bytes randomly. Valid --spoof-mac argument examples are Apple, 0, 01:02:03:04:05:06, deadbeefcafe, 0020F2, and Cisco.

--badsum (Send packets with bogus TCP/UDP checksums)

Asks Nmap to use an invalid TCP or UDP 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 http://www.phrack.org/phrack/60/p60-0x0c.txt

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 http://insecure.org/nmap/data/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 and Nmap::Parser 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 6 labeled fields, separated by tabs and followed with a colon. The fields are Host, Ports, Protocols, Ignored State, OS, Seq Index, IPID, and Status.

The most important of these fields is generally Ports, which gives details on each interesting port. It is 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 http://www.unspecific.com/nmap-oG-output.

-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)

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 for even greater verbosity. Using it more than twice has no effect.

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 [level] (Increase or 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. Alternatively, you can set a debug level by giving an argument to -d. 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.

--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.

--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).

--log-errors (Log errors/warnings to normal mode output file)

Warnings and errors printed by Nmap usually go only to the screen (interactive output), leaving any specified normal-fomat output files uncluttered. But when you do want to see those messages in the normal output file you specified, add this option. It is useful when you aren't watching the interactive output or are trying to debug a problem. The messages will also still appear in interactive mode. This will not work for most errors related to bad command-line arguments, as Nmap may not have initialized its output files yet. In addition, some Nmap error/warning messages use a different system that does not yet support this option. An alternative to using this option is redirecting interactive output (including the standard error stream) to a file. While most UNIX shells make that approach easy, it can be difficult on Windows.

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 admin 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 (or in the current working directory on Windows). Simply load Nmap's XML output in a modern web browser and it should retrieve nmap.xsl from the filesystem and use it to render results. 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 http://insecure.org/nmap/data/nmap.xsl. This tells a browser to load the latest version of the stylesheet from Insecure.Org. The --webxml option does the same thing with less typing and memorization. Loading the XSL from Insecure.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 Insecure.Org)

This convenience option is simply an alias for --stylesheet http://insecure.org/nmap/data/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.

-6 (Enable IPv6 scanning)

Since 2002, Nmap has offered IPv6 support for its most popular features. In particular, ping scanning (TCP-only), connect scanning, and version detection 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 give away.

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. One of the better ones is run by BT Exact at https://tb.ipv6.btexact.com/. I have also used one that Hurricane Electric provides at http://ipv6tb.he.net/. 6to4 tunnels are another popular, free approach.

-A (Aggressive scan options)

This option enables additional advanced and aggressive options. I haven't decided exactly which it stands for yet. Presently this enables OS Detection (-O) and version scanning (-sV). 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. This option only enables features, and not timing options (such as -T4) or verbosity options (-v) that you might want as well.

--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-fingerprints. Nmap first 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 environmental variable. Next comes ~/.nmap for real and effective UIDs (POSIX systems only) or location of the Nmap executable (Win32 only), and then a compiled-in location such as /usr/local/share/nmap or /usr/share/nmap . As a last resort, Nmap will look in the current directory.

--send-eth (Use raw ethernet sending)

Asks Nmap to send packets at the raw ethernet (data link) layer rather than the higher IP (network) 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 variable may be set as an equivalent alternative to --privileged.

--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.

--interactive (Start in interactive mode)

Starts Nmap in interactive mode, which offers an interactive Nmap prompt allowing easy launching of multiple scans (either synchronously or in the background). This is useful for people who scan from multi-user systems as they often want to test their security without letting everyone else on the system know exactly which systems they are scanning. Use --interactive to activate this mode and then type h for help. This option is rarely used because proper shells are usually more familiar and feature-complete. This option includes a bang (!) operator for executing shell commands, which is one of many reasons not to install Nmap setuid root.

-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.

v / V

Increase / Decrease the Verbosity

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: 0:00:08 elapsed; 111 hosts completed (5 up), 5 undergoing Service Scan

Service scan Timing: About 28.00% done; ETC: 16:18 (0:00:15 remaining)