Nmap Essentials

Harness the power of Nmap, the most versatile network port scanner on the planet, to secure large scale networks

About This Book

• Get acquainted with the intricacies of Nmap’s powerful software suite
• Set up and configure NMAP for different network specifications effectively
• Secure and troubleshoot large scale networks using the powerful features of NMAP with this easy-to-follow guide

Who This Book Is For

This book is for beginners who wish to start using Nmap, who have experience as a system administrator or of network engineering, and who wish to get started with Nmap.

What You Will Learn

• Learn about the inner workings of networks and the importance of ports
• Run a basic or default scan to detect services using Nmap
• Run an advanced scan with Nmap to designate different types of scans
• Deal with slow or sluggish networks to optimize timing, parallelism, and so on in order to complete scans efficiently
• Understand the internal workings of the Nmap scripting engine to find and run specific Nmap scripts
• Create and run a basic Nmap script in Lua by learning Lua basics, Nmap scripting, and Nmap script submission
• Crack passwords with Ncrack, map networks with Nping, and communicate over the network with Ncat

In Detail

Nmap is an extremely powerful network port scanner used to identify hosts on a network. Nmap is free, flexible, powerful, and easy to implement, which makes it a very convenient utility.

This book demonstrates how to run basic and advanced scans, optimizing them to perform well in a variety of environments. Starting with an overview of Nmap, the reader will be guided through installation on popular operating systems. The book then explains how to use Nmap to run basic and advanced scans in addition to using the Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE). All this helps with optimizing Nmap performance in a variety of environments, eventually enabling the reader to integrate with other Nmap tools such as Nessus, Nikto, Burp Suite, and NSE versus NASL scanning.

By the end of the book, the reader will have gained essential insights into network security analysis.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction to Nmap
Chapter 2: Network Fundamentals
Chapter 3: Nmap Basics
Chapter 4: Advanced Nmap Scans
Chapter 5: Performance Optimization
Chapter 6: Introduction to the Nmap Scripting Engine
Chapter 7: Writing Nmap Scripts
Chapter 8: Additional Nmap Tools
Chapter 9: Vulnerability Assessments and Tools
Chapter 10: Penetration Testing with Metasploit