This article describes some of these scan types, explaining their relative benefits and just how they actually work. It also offers tips about which types of scan would be best against which types of host.
The article assumes you have Nmap installed (or that you know how to install it. Instructions are available on the Nmap website, http://www.insecure.org/nmap/install/inst-source.html ), and that you have the required privileges to run the scans detailed (many scans require root or Administrator privileges).
A frequently asked questions section has been added since the first version of this article, and this is included as the last section in this version. This is a fully revised and updated version of this tutorial, re-typed and converted to a TeX format, allowing more output formats to be utilised. At the time of writing, the latest Nmap version was 4.11.