Nmap

[mohitblue]

Nmap (Network MAPper) is a security scanner originally written by Gordon Lyon (also known by his pseudonym Fyodor Vaskovich) [1] used to discover hosts and services on a computer network, thus creating a "map" of the network. To accomplish its goal nmap sends specially crafted packets to the target host and then analyzes the responses. Unlike many simple port scanners that just send packets at some predefined constant rate, nmap accounts for the network conditions (latency fluctuations, network congestion, the target interference with the scan) during the run. Also, owing to the large and active user community providing feedback on its features and contributing back, nmap has succeeded to extend its discovery capabilities beyond basic host being up/down or port being open/closed to being able to determine operating system of the target, names and versions of the listening services, estimate uptime, the type of device, presence of the firewall.


Nmap features include:
Host Discovery - Identifying hosts on a network, for example listing the hosts which respond to pings, or which have a particular port open
Port Scanning - Enumerating the open ports on one or more target hosts
Version Detection - Interrogating listening network services listening on remote devices to determine the application name and version number[4]
OS Detection - Remotely determining the operating system and some hardware characteristics of network devices.
Scriptable interaction with the target - using Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE) and Lua programming language customized queries can be made Nmap Scripting Engine.
Typical uses of Nmap:
Auditing the security of a device, by identifying the network connections which can be made to it[citation needed]
Identifying open ports on a target host in preparation for auditing[5]
Network inventory, Network mapping, maintenance, and asset management
Auditing the security of a network, by identifying unexpected new servers


Kindly post any queries about it here...if reader want usage details or tutorials...that can also be included..just started with overview

[warn]

[MasterZuFu]

Again, copy and pasting information from other sources without detailing that source or giving credits to the original author.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nmap