Masscan

Mass IP port scanner — the fastest Internet-scale scanner, scanning the entire Internet in minutes

Methods12 commands

#port-scanner#network#masscan#internet-scale#enumeration

Installation

1Install via apt

2Build from source

3Verify installation

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install masscan

# Build from source
git clone https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/masscan.git
cd masscan && make && sudo make install

# Verify
masscan --version

Basic Usage

Scan large IP ranges for open ports at incredible speeds

# Scan single IP
sudo masscan 192.168.1.1 -p80,443,8080

# Scan subnet
sudo masscan 192.168.1.0/24 -p1-1000 --rate=1000

# Scan from file
sudo masscan -iL ips.txt -p80,443 --rate=10000

# Exclude list
sudo masscan 0.0.0.0/0 -p443 --excludefile exclude.txt

# Banner grabbing
sudo masscan 10.0.0.0/8 -p80 --banners --rate=1000

# Save results
sudo masscan example.com -p1-65535 -oJ results.json

Command Reference

12 commands

1Port range to scan

-p

2Packets per second

--rate

3Grab service banners

--banners

4Input file with targets

-iL

5File with IPs to exclude

--excludefile

6JSON output

-oJ

7Binary output

-oB

8List output

-oL

9Source IP address

--adapter-ip

10Source port range

--adapter-port

11TTL value for packets

--ttl

12Seconds to wait for responses

--wait

When to Use

Scanning entire ASN ranges for open services

Finding exposed databases and web servers

Large-scale Internet reconnaissance

Cloud asset discovery across IP ranges

Fast initial scan before targeted Nmap scanning

Notes & Tips

Can scan the entire Internet on a single port in under 5 minutes

Requires root for raw packet sending

Use --excludefile to avoid scanning sensitive IPs

Results can be piped to naabu or nmap for detailed scanning

Common Errors & Solutions

Permission denied

Masscan requires root. Run with sudo on Linux

Adapter not found

Specify network interface with --adapter-ip or --adapter-port

# Scan single IP sudo masscan 192.168.1.1 -p80,443,8080 # Scan subnet sudo masscan 192.168.1.0/24 -p1-1000 --rate=1000 # Scan from file sudo masscan -iL ips.txt -p80,443 --rate=10000 # Exclude list sudo masscan 0.0.0.0/0 -p443 --excludefile exclude.txt # Banner grabbing sudo masscan 10.0.0.0/8 -p80 --banners --rate=1000 # Save results sudo masscan example.com -p1-65535 -oJ results.json