Nmap: My exact answer on what is Nmap?

Introduction

In this post, you will learn what is Nmap and how they work exactly and what exactly it does. And in this post, I am not teaching how to command or how to download a Network mapping. I am just giving an explanation of what is this tool about.

What is Nmap?

Nmap stands for “network mapping“. The initial release of this software was in the year 1997. As I said Nmap is a network mapping tool, this particular tool comes under the scanning section. In simple words, Nmap is software that scans the network of a particular IP Address and displays the details of domains like the OS and firewall level securities.

The Nmap is available for all three OS like Linux, Mac, and also windows.

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Who uses Nmap?

Anyone with networking knowledge can use Nmap, just kidding. Anyone can use the network mapping tool, It is free open-source software. especially used by penetration testers and ethical hackers.

How Nmap works

Nmap works really very simple. The user should just enter the IP Address and give a command on what scan to do. There are different types of scans like intense and ping scans are a few of them. The network mapping finds raw packets and allows them to run through the network mapping. So, the network mapping according to the scan types displays the result.

If it is a full scan, the user will receive everything about the IP address like ports and the OS they are using and also the security levels of the firewall.

Later on, times passed and this Nmap tool became very old and it is not very GUI friendly so, the same company who created the network mapping created the Zmap or Zenmap. The Zmap was created for more user friendly.

So, nowadays most of them started to use Zmap and the Network mapping tool became history. History of Gordon Lydon.

Below is the image of the Network mapping tool scanning IPV4 and IPV6 Addresses;

Image credit: By Jacek Wielemborek – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37564872

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Do I use Network mapping?

No, Initially I used Network mapping and I started to hate the GUI and changed to Zenmap. Network mapping more of looks like a c terminal but Zmap is cool. I prefer users to Zmap.

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