How to Install Nmap on Ubuntu

Nmap is a network scanning tool to identify open ports and running services on a computer. It is a useful networking tool for gathering information about a computer or a network.

You can check whether Nmap is already installed on your Ubuntu system by running the following command:

nmap --version

You will see the Nmap version if it is already installed. If not, run the following command to install Nmap on Ubuntu:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nmap

Nmap Command Examples

Check open ports on your local Ubuntu system:

nmap localhost

Scan a network to find all running devices on the network:

nmap -sn 192.168.1.0/24

Use the -p option to only scan specific port(s):

nmap -p 80 192.168.1.10
nmap -p 22,80 192.168.1.10
nmap -p 22-1000 192.168.1.10

Check if UDP port 53 is open:

nmap -p U:53 192.168.1.10

Check if TCP port 21 is open:

nmap -p T:21 192.168.1.10

Include the version of running services:

nmap -sV 192.168.1.10

Try to detect the operating system running on the remote computer with -O switch:

sudo nmap -O 192.168.1.10

Save the scan result to a file called output.txt:

nmap -oN output.txt 192.168.1.10

Read targets from a text file called targets.txt. The text file will contain a list of IP addresses or hostnames to be scanned (one IP per line):

nmap -iL targets.txt

There are a lot of options available with the nmap command. To see all command options, type man nmap in the command prompt.