Learning Nmap Security Network Port Scanner: Service and Application Version Detection -A or -sV nmap-service-probes

This is the fifteenth post detailing my notes on Nmap Network Scanning.

In this scan all open and open|filtered TCP and/or UDP ports are passed to the service scanning module (nmap-services-probes) which is:

…..a database of custom probes and expected responses that the Nmap Security Scanner uses to identify what services (eg http, smtp, dns, etc.) are listening on open ports.

The premise is that many common services identify themselves in an initial welcome banner.

The version detection may be switched on via -A (Aggressive or advanced) or -sV.

:~# nmap -sV scanme.nmap.org

Starting Nmap 6.25 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2013-07-22 17:02 BST
Nmap scan report for scanme.nmap.org (74.207.244.221)
Host is up (0.45s latency).
Not shown: 995 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
22/tcp open ssh OpenSSH 5.3p1 Debian 3ubuntu7 (Ubuntu Linux; protocol 2.0)
80/tcp open http Apache httpd 2.2.14 ((Ubuntu))
554/tcp open tcpwrapped
7070/tcp open tcpwrapped
9929/tcp open nping-echo Nping echo
Service Info: OS: Linux; CPE: cpe:/o:linux:linux_kernel