masscan(8) masscan(8)
NAME
masscan - Fast scan of the Internet
SYNOPSIS
masscan <ip addresses/ranges> -p ports options
DESCRIPTION
masscan is an Internet-scale port scanner, useful for large scale sur-
veys of the Internet, or of internal networks. While the default trans-
mit rate is only 100 packets/second, it can optional go as fast as 25
million packets/second, a rate sufficient to scan the Internet in 3
minutes for one port.
OPTIONS
o <ip/range>: anything on the command-line not prefixed with a '-' is
assumed to be an IP address or range. There are three valid for-
mats. The first is a single IPv4 address like "192.168.0.1". The
second is a range like "10.0.0.1-10.0.0.100". The third is a CIDR
address, like "0.0.0.0/0". At least one target must be specified.
Multiple targets can be specified. This can be specified as multi-
ple options separated by space, or can be separated by a comma as a
single option, such as 10.0.0.0/8,192.168.0.1.
o --range <ip/range>: the same as target range spec described above,
except as a named parameter instead of an unnamed one.
o -p <ports, --ports <ports>: specifies the port(s) to be scanned. A
single port can be specified, like -p80. A range of ports can be
specified, like -p 20-25. A list of ports/ranges can be specified,
like -p80,20-25. UDP ports can also be specified, like --ports
U:161,U:1024-1100.
o --banners: specifies that banners should be grabbed, like HTTP
server versions, HTML title fields, and so forth. Only a few proto-
cols are supported.
o --rate <packets-per-second>: specifies the desired rate for trans-
mitting packets. This can be very small numbers, like 0.1 for
transmitting packets at rates of one every 10 seconds, for very
large numbers like 10000000, which attempts to transmit at 10 mil-
lion packets/second. In my experience, Windows and can do 250 thou-
sand packets per second, and latest versions of Linux can do 2.5
million packets per second. The PF_RING driver is needed to get to
25 million packets/second.
o -c <filename>, --conf <filename>: reads in a configuration file.
The format of the configuration file is described below.
o --resume <filename>: the same as --conf, except that a few options
are automatically set, such as --append-output. The format of the
configuration file is described below.
o --echo: don't run, but instead dump the current configuration to a
file. This file can then be used with the -c option. The format of
this output is described below under 'CONFIGURATION FILE'.
o -e <ifname>, --adapter <ifname>: use the named raw network inter-
face, such as "eth0" or "dna1". If not specified, the first network
interface found with a default gateway will be used.
o --adapter-ip <ip-address>: send packets using this IP address. If
not specified, then the first IP address bound to the network
interface will be used. Instead of a single IP address, a range may
be specified. NOTE: The size of the range must be an even power of
2, such as 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 1024 etc. addresses.
o --adapter-port <port>: send packets using this port number as the
source. If not specified, a random port will be chosen in the range
40000 through 60000. This port should be filtered by the host fire-
wall (like iptables) to prevent the host network stack from inter-
fering with arriving packets. Instead of a single port, a range can
be specified, like 40000-40003. NOTE: The size of the range must be
an even power of 2, such as the example above that has a total of 4
addresses.
o --adapter-mac <mac-address>: send packets using this as the source
MAC address. If not specified, then the first MAC address bound to
the network interface will be used.
o --router-mac <mac address>: send packets to this MAC address as the
destination. If not specified, then the gateway address of the net-
work interface will be ARPed.
o --ping: indicates that the scan should include an ICMP echo
request. This may be included with TCP and UDP scanning.
o --exclude <ip/range>: blacklist an IP address or range, preventing
it from being scanned. This overrides any target specification,
guaranteeing that this address/range won't be scanned. This has the
same format as the normal target specification.
o --excludefile <filename>: reads in a list of exclude ranges, in the
same target format described above. These ranges override any tar-
gets, preventing them from being scanned.
o --append-output: causes output to append to file, rather than over-
writing the file.
o --iflist: list the available network interfaces, and then exits.
o --retries: the number of retries to send, at 1 second intervals.
Note that since this scanner is stateless, retries are sent regard-
less if replies have already been received.
o --nmap: print help about nmap-compatibility alternatives for these
options.
o --pcap-payloads: read packets from a libpcap file containing pack-
ets and extract the UDP payloads, and associate those payloads with
the destination port. These payloads will then be used when sending
UDP packets with the matching destination port. Only one payload
will be remembered per port. Similar to --nmap-payloads.
o --nmap-payloads <filename>: read in a file in the same format as
the nmap file nmap-payloads. This contains UDP payload, so that we
can send useful UDP packets instead of empty ones. Similar to
--pcap-payloads.
o --http-user-agent <user-agent>: replaces the existing user-agent
field with the indicated value when doing HTTP requests.
o --open-only: report only open ports, not closed ports.
o --pcap <filename>: saves received packets (but not transmitted
packets) to the libpcap-format file.
o --packet-trace: prints a summary of those packets sent and
received. This is useful at low rates, like a few packets per sec-
ond, but will overwhelm the terminal at high rates.
o --pfring: force the use of the PF_RING driver. The program will
exit if PF_RING DNA drvers are not available.
o --resume-index: the point in the scan at when it was paused.
o --resume-count: the maximum number of probes to send before exit-
ing. This is useful with the --resume-index to chop up a scan and
split it among multiple instances, though the --shards option might
be better.
o --shards <x>/<y>: splits the scan among instances. x is the id for
this scan, while y is the total number of instances. For example,
--shards 1/2 tells an instance to send every other packet, starting
with index 0. Likewise, --shards 2/2 sends every other packet, but
starting with index 1, so that it doesn't overlap with the first
example.
o --rotate <time>: rotates the output file, renaming it with the cur-
rent timestamp, moving it to a separate directory. The time is
specified in number of seconds, like "3600" for an hour. Or, units
of time can be specified, such as "hourly", or "6hours", or
"10min". Times are aligned on an even boundary, so if "daily" is
specified, then the file will be rotated every day at midnight.
o --rotate-offset <time>: an offset in the time. This is to accommo-
date timezones.
o --rotate-dir <directory>: when rotating the file, this specifies
which directory to move the file to. A useful directory is
/var/log/masscan.
o --seed <integer>: an integer that seeds the random number genera-
tor. Using a different seed will cause packets to be sent in a dif-
ferent random order. Instead of an integer, the string time can be
specified, which seeds using the local timestamp, automatically
generating a differnet random order of scans. If no seed specified,
time is the default.
o --regress: run a regression test, returns '0' on success and '1' on
failure.
o --ttl <num>: specifies the TTL of outgoing packets, defaults to
255.
o --wait <seconds>: specifies the number of seconds after transmit is
done to wait for receiving packets before exiting the program. The
default is 10 seconds. The string forever can be specified to never
terminate.
o --offline: don't actually transmit packets. This is useful with a
low rate and --packet-trace to look at what packets might've been
transmitted. Or, it's useful with --rate 100000000 in order to
benchmark how fast transmit would work (assuming a zero-overhead
driver). PF_RING is about 20% slower than the benchmark result from
offline mode.
o -sL: this doesn't do a scan, but instead creates a list of random
addresses. This is useful for importing into other tools. The
options --shard, --resume-index, and --resume-count can be useful
with this feature.
o --interactive: show the results in realtime on the console. It has
no effect if used with --output-format or --output-filename.
o --output-format <fmt>: indicates the format of the output file,
which can be xml, binary, grepable, list, or JSON. The option
--output-filename must be specified.
o --output-filename <filename>: the file which to save results to. If
the parameter --output-format is not specified, then the default of
xml will be used.
o -oB <filename>: sets the output format to binary and saves the out-
put in the given filename. This is equivelent to using the --out-
put-format and --output-filename parameters. The option --readscan
can then be used to read the binary file. Binary files are much
smaller than their XML equivelents, but require a separate step to
convert back into XML or another readable format.
o -oX <filename>: sets the output format to XML and saves the output
in the given filename. This is equivelent to using the --out-
put-format xml and --output-filename parameters.
o -oG <filename>: sets the output format to grepable and saves the
output in the given filename. This is equivelent to using the
--output-format grepable and --output-filename parameters.
o -oJ <filename>: sets the output format to JSON and saves the output
in the given filename. This is equivelent to using the --out-
put-format json and --output-filename parameters.
o -oL <filename>: sets the output format to a simple list format and
saves the output in the given filename. This is equivelent to using
the --output-format list and --output-filename parameters.
o --readscan <binary-files>: reads the files created by the -oB
option from a scan, then outputs them in one of the other formats,
depending on command-line parameters. In other words, it can take
the binary version of the output and convert it to an XML or JSON
format.
CONFIGURATION FILE FORMAT
The configuration file uses the same parameter names as on the command-
line, but without the -- prefix, and with an = sign between the name
and the value. An example configuration file might be:
# targets
range = 10.0.0.0/8,192.168.0.0/16
range = 172.16.0.0/14
ports = 20-25,80,U:53
ping = true
# adapter
adapter = eth0
adapter-ip = 192.168.0.1
router-mac = 66-55-44-33-22-11
# other
exclude-file = /etc/masscan/exludes.txt
By default, the program will read default configuration from the file
/etc/masscan/masscan.conf. This is useful for system-specific settings,
such as the --adapter-xxx options. This is also useful for excluded IP
addresses, so that you can scan the entire Internet, while skipping
dangerous addresses, like those owned by the DoD, and not make an acci-
dental mistake.
CONTROL-C BEHAVIOR
When the user presses ctrl-c, the scan will stop, and the current state
of the scan will be saved in the file 'paused.conf'. The scan can be
resumed with the --resume option:
# masscan --resume paused.conf
The program will not exit immediately, but will wait a default of 10
seconds to receive results from the Internet and save the results
before exiting completely. This time can be changed with the --wait
option.
SIMPLE EXAMPLES
The following example scans all private networks for webservers, and
prints all open ports that were found.
# masscan 10.0.0.0/8 192.168.0.0/16 172.16.0.0/12 -p80 --open-only
The following example scans the entire Internet for DNS servers, grab-
bing their versions, then saves the results in an XML file.
# masscan 0.0.0.0/0 --excludefile no-dod.txt -pU:53 --banners --output-filename dns.xml
You should be able to import the XML into databases and such.
The following example reads a binary scan results file called
bin-test.scan and prints results to console.
# masscan --readscan bin-test.scan
The following example reads a binary scan results file called
bin-test.scan and creates an XML output file called bin-test.xml.
# masscan --readscan bin-test.scan -oX bin-test.xml
ADVANCED EXAMPLES
Let's say that you want to scan the entire Internet and spread the scan
across three machines. Masscan would be launched on all three machines
using the following command-lines:
# masscan 0.0.0.0/0 -p0-65535 --shard 1/3
# masscan 0.0.0.0/0 -p0-65535 --shard 2/3
# masscan 0.0.0.0/0 -p0-65535 --shard 3/3
An alternative is with the "resume" feature. A scan has an internal
index that goes from zero to the number of ports times then number of
IP addresses. The following example shows splitting up a scan into
chunks of a 1000 items each:
# masscan 0.0.0.0/0 -p0-65535 --resume-index 0 --resume-count 1000
# masscan 0.0.0.0/0 -p0-65535 --resume-index 1000 --resume-count 1000
# masscan 0.0.0.0/0 -p0-65535 --resume-index 2000 --resume-count 1000
# masscan 0.0.0.0/0 -p0-65535 --resume-index 3000 --resume-count 1000
A script can use this to split smaller tasks across many other
machines, such as Amazon EC2 instances. As each instance completes a
job, the script might send a request to a central coordinating server
for more work.
SPURIOUS RESETS
When scanning TCP using the default IP address of your adapter, the
built-in stack will generate RST packets. This will prevent banner
grabbing. There are are two ways to solve this. The first way is to
create a firewall rule to block that port from being seen by the stack.
How this works is dependent on the operating system, but on Linux this
looks something like:
# iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -i eth0 --dport 61234 -j DROP
Then, when scanning, that same port must be used as the source:
# masscan 10.0.0.0/8 -p80 --banners --adapter-port 61234
An alternative is to "spoof" a different IP address. This IP address
must be within the range of the local network, but must not otherwise
be in use by either your own computer or another computer on the net-
work. An example of this would look like:
# masscan 10.0.0.0/8 -p80 --banners --adapter-ip 192.168.1.101
Setting your source IP address this way is the preferred way of running
this scanner.
ABUSE COMPLAINTS
This scanner is designed for large-scale surveys, of either an organi-
zation, or of the Internet as a whole. This scanning will be noticed by
those monitoring their logs, which will generate complaints.
If you are scanning your own organization, this may lead to you being
fired. Never scan outside your local subnet without getting permission
from your boss, with a clear written declaration of why you are scan-
ning.
The same applies to scanning the Internet from your employer. This is
another good way to get fired, as your IT department gets flooded with
complaints as to why your organization is hacking them.
When scanning on your own, such as your home Internet or ISP, this will
likely cause them to cancel your account due to the abuse complaints.
One solution is to work with your ISP, to be clear about precisely what
we are doing, to prove to them that we are researching the Internet,
not "hacking" it. We have our ISP send the abuse complaints directly to
us. For anyone that asks, we add them to our "--excludefile", black-
listing them so that we won't scan them again. While interacting with
such people, some instead add us to their whitelist, so that their
firewalls won't log us anymore (they'll still block us, of course, they
just won't log that fact to avoid filling up their logs with our
scans).
Ultimately, I don't know if it's possible to completely solve this
problem. Despite the Internet being a public, end-to-end network, you
are still "guilty until proven innocent" when you do a scan.
COMPATIBILITY
While not listed in this document, a lot of parameters compatible with
nmap will also work.
SEE ALSO
nmap(8), pcap(3)
AUTHORS
This tool was written by Robert Graham. The source code is available at
https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/masscan.
January 2014 masscan(8)
masscan 1.3.1 - Generated Tue Jan 26 18:49:51 CST 2021