14 May 2026

How to get inventory information of all the hosts on a network?

nmap -A -T4 -oN network_scan.txt 192.168.2.0/24

  • -A (Aggressive / Advanced Scan): This is a convenient shortcut that enables four powerful features at once:
    • OS Detection: Attempts to identify the operating system of the target.
    • Version Detection: Probes open ports to determine the exact software and version numbers running on the services.
    • Script Scanning: Runs a default set of Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE) scripts to gather extra information or spot common vulnerabilities.
    • Traceroute: Maps the network path taken from your machine to the target.
  • -T4 (Aggressive Timing): This timing template tells Nmap to run a faster, more aggressive scan. It assumes you are on a reasonably fast and reliable network and makes adjustments (like reducing the wait times between probes and capping timeouts) to speed up execution.
  • -oN (Normal Output): This tells Nmap to save the results to a text file in a human-readable format. You must follow this flag with your desired file name (e.g., -oN scan_results.txt).

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    $ sudo nmap -sV -O -R --dns-servers 192.168.0.1 -T4 -vv -oN network_scan.txt 192.168.0.0/24

    -sV: service version detection 

    -O: OS identification

    -R: Force reverse DNS lookup for all hosts

    --system-dns: Use your system's DNS resolver (often better on home networks)

    -T4: Faster scan timing (good balance between speed and accuracy)

    -v or -vv: Increase verbosity so you see hostnames as they are discovered

    -oN: Then you can open network_scan.txt with any text editor