Re: Nmap scanning speed

From: Fyodor (fyodor@insecure.org)
Date: Wed Dec 07 2005 - 05:19:42 EST


On Fri, Nov 11, 2005 at 08:15:46PM -0700, Tate Hansen wrote:
> When doing a 65k TCP port scan, the systems start off fast but quickly slow
> down. Each nmap became very memory hungry

I did some large scale tests recently that confirm your experience.
Nmap has gained many great new features in the last few years, but its
waistline has expanded too. Your example of scanning 65K ports x 100
hosts at a time x 8 Nmap processes running in parallel is a nasty test
case, but one Nmap should be able to handle. So I spent this last
weekend putting Nmap on a major diet. The result is Nmap 3.94ALPHA3,
which can reduce memory consumption by an order of magnitude or more
for certain large scans like yours. You can find it here:

http://download.insecure.org/nmap/dist/nmap-3.94ALPHA3.tgz
http://download.insecure.org/nmap/dist/nmap-3.94ALPHA3-win32.zip
http://download.insecure.org/nmap/dist/nmap-3.94ALPHA3-1.src.rpm

I am very interested in hearing how it works out for you.

Cheers,
Fyodor
http://www.insecure.org/

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