Nmap stands for Network Mapper. It is an open source tool that is used widely for network discovery and security auditing. In this course we'll use nmap in  Kali linux for network scanning.

 Nmap was often used ny network adminstrators and ethical hackers to gather all the available infomation in that large network as well as in a single host.

Nmap uses raw IP packets to determine − what hosts are available on the network, what services those hosts are offering, what operating systems they are running on, what type of firewalls are in use, and what ports utilizes the services etc.

Nmap runs on all major computer operating systems such as Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.