Selecting the correct timing template

Nmap includes six templates that set different timing and performance arguments to optimize your scans. Even though Nmap automatically adjusts some of these values, it is recommended that you set the correct timing template to hint Nmap with a provide as to the speed of your network connection and the target's response time.

The following recipe will teach you about Nmap's timing templates and how to choose the correct one.

How to do it...

Open your terminal and type the following command to use the "aggressive" timing template:

# nmap -T4 -d 192.168.4.20
--------------- Timing report ---------------
  hostgroups: min 1, max 100000
  rtt-timeouts: init 500, min 100, max 1250
  max-scan-delay: TCP 10, UDP 1000, SCTP 10
  parallelism: min 0, max 0
  max-retries: 6, host-timeout: 0
  min-rate: 0, max-rate: 0
---------------------------------------------
...

You may use the integers between 0 and 5, for example -T[0-5].

How it works...

The option -T is used...