How to do it...

The following is the recipe for using Nmap:

1. Nmap is already installed in Kali Linux. We can type the following command to start it and see all the options available:

        nmap -h

The following screenshot shows the output of the preceding command:

1. To perform a basic scan we use the following command:

        nmap -sV -Pn x.x.x.x

The following screenshot shows the output of the preceding command:

1. -Pn implies that we do not check whether the host is up or not by performing a ping request first. The -sV parameter is to list all the running services on the found open ports.
2. Another flag we can use is -A, which automatically performs OS detection, version detection, script scanning, and traceroute. The command is:

        nmap -A -Pn x.x.x.x

1. To scan an IP range or multiple IPs, we can use this command:

        nmap -A -Pn x.x.x.0/24