How to use nmap to ping scan which IPs are up in a subnet

TL/DR –

nmap -sP 192.168.10.0/24

Source – How to Scan an IP Network Range with NMAP

Story –

I love Angry IP Scanner for all my ping check needs. It’s nice, simple, and fast. But I like it mainly because I’ve used it since a very long time, and because it’s maintained by a guy named angryziber (get it? An Angry Zebra?)

But today, when I tried to install it on my Mac, it threw an error that I need to install JDK. Java. No.

So, I need a new way to pingscan. Turns out, angry IP is primarily a simplification of nmap. Since I’m more CLI than GUI nowadays, that fits perfectly. Also, shot in the dark – I didn’t have nmap installed on my mac, so I just did –

brew install nmap

and that worked! I’m a little surprised that it did, but that’s the power of homebrew, I guess.

Further, I’m surprised at how versatile nmap is when it comes to IP range input. You can do any of the following, they all work!

nmap -sP 192.168.10.0/24
nmap -sP 192.168.10.0-10
nmap -sP 192.168.10.1 192.168.10.2 192.168.10.3
nmap -sP 192.168.10.*

Cool discovery of the day. If only the IPs I scanned had any free IPs, I’d be on my way! Alright, back to work.