Project abstract - Nmap

Nmap (Network Mapper) is a security scanner originally written by Gordon Lyon (also known by his pseudonym Fyodor Vaskovich) used to discover hostsand 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 a 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 and contributing to its features, Nmap has been able to extend its discovery capabilities beyond simply figuring out whether a host is up or down and which ports are open and closed; it can determine the operating system of the target, names and versions of the listening services, estimated uptime, type of device, and presence of a firewall.

              

Nmap runs on Linux, Microsoft Windows, Solaris, HP-UX and BSD variants (including Mac OS X), and also on AmigaOS and SGI IRIX.  Linux is the most popular Nmap platform with Windows following it closely.

Reference link

Nmap - Free Security Scanner For Network Exploration & Security ...

link2

NMAP a Security Auditing Tool

Nmap Scripting Engine - scip AG

NMAP Scanning Options

Snort & Nmap