Introduction
Nmap can often be installed or upgraded with a single command, so don't let the length of this chapter scare you. Most readers will use the table of contents to skip directly to sections that concern them. This chapter describes how to install Nmap on many platforms, including both source code compilation and binary installation methods. Graphical and command-line versions of Nmap are described and contrasted. Nmap removal instructions are also provided in case you change your mind.Testing Whether Nmap is Already Installed
The first step toward obtaining Nmap is to check whether you already have it. Many free operating system distributions (including most Linux and BSD systems) come with Nmap packages, although they may not be installed by default. On Unix systems, open a terminal window and try executing the command nmap --version. If Nmap exists and is in your PATH.Checking for Nmap and determining its version number:
nmap --version
If Nmap does not exist on the system (or if your PATH is incorrectly set), an error message such as nmap: Command not found is reported. As the example above shows, Nmap responds to the command by printing its version number (here 4.76).
Even if your system already has a copy of Nmap, you should consider upgrading to the latest version available from Nmap Website. Newer versions often run faster, fix important bugs, and feature updated operating system and service version detection databases. A list of changes since the version already on your system can be found at http://nmap.org/changelog.html.
Downloading Nmap
Nmap.Org is the official source for downloading Nmap source code and binaries for Nmap and Zenmap. Source code is distributed in bzip2 and gzip compressed tar files, and binaries are available for Linux (RPM format), Windows (NSIS executable installer) and Mac OS X (.dmg disk image). Find all of this at Nmap Website.Removing Nmap
If your purpose for removing Nmap is simply to upgrade to the latest version, you can usually use the upgrade option provided by most binary package managers. Similarly, installing the latest source code (as described in the section called “Linux/Unix Compilation and Installation from Source Code”) generally overwrites any previous from-source installations. Removing Nmap is a good idea if you are changing install methods (such as from source to RPM or vice versa) or if you are not using Nmap anymore and you care about the few megabytes of disk space it consumes.How to remove Nmap depends on how you installed it initially (see previous sections). Ease of removal (and other maintenance) is a major advantage of most binary packages. For example, when Nmap is installed using the RPM system common on Linux distributions, it can be removed by running the command rpm -e nmap zenmap as root. Analogous options are offered by most other package managers—consult their documentation for further information.
If you installed Nmap from the Windows installer, simply open the Control Panel, select “Add or Remove Programs” and select the “Remove” button for Nmap. You can also remove WinPcap unless you need it for other applications such as Wireshark.
If you installed Nmap from source code, removal is slightly more difficult. If you still have the build directory available (where you initially ran make install), you can remove Nmap by running make uninstall. If you no longer have that build directory, type nmap -V to obtain the Nmap version number. Then download that source tarball for that version of Nmap from http://nmap.org/dist/ or http://nmap.org/dist-old/. Uncompress the tarball and change into the newly created directory (
nmap-<version>). Run
./configure, including any install-path options that you specified
the first time (such as --prefix or
--datadir). Then run make
uninstall. Alternatively, you can simply delete all the
Nmap-related files. If you used a default source install of Nmap
versions 4.50 or higher, the following commands remove it.
# cd /usr/local
# rm -f bin/nmap bin/nmapfe bin/xnmap
# rm -f man/man1/nmap.1 man/man1/zenmap.1
# rm -rf share/nmap
# ./bin/uninstall_zenmap
# rm -f bin/nmap bin/nmapfe bin/xnmap
# rm -f man/man1/nmap.1 man/man1/zenmap.1
# rm -rf share/nmap
# ./bin/uninstall_zenmap
You may have to adjust the above commands slightly if you specified
--prefix or other install-path option when
first installing Nmap. The files relating to zenmap, nmapfe, and xnmap do not exist if you did not install the Zenmap frontend.Source: http://nmap.org/book/inst-removing-nmap.html