Public bug reported:
Something is wrong with rendering of the intended headlines of port
states in chapter PORT SCANNING BASICS.
Viewing using man/info yields this where text is confusingly referring
to missing state categories:
The six port states recognized by Nmap
An application is actively accepting TCP connections, UDP datagrams
or SCTP associations on
this port. Finding these is often the primary goal of port scanning.
Security-minded people
know that each open port is an avenue for attack. Attackers and
pen-testers want to exploit
the open ports, while administrators try to close or protect them
with firewalls without
thwarting legitimate users. Open ports are also interesting for
non-security scans because
they show services available for use on the network.
A closed port is accessible (it receives and responds to Nmap probe
packets), but there is
no application listening on it. They can be helpful in showing that
a host is up on an IP
address (host discovery, or ping scanning), and as part of OS
detection. Because closed
ports are reachable, it may be worth scanning later in case some
open up. Administrators may
want to consider blocking such ports with a firewall. Then they
would appear in the filtered
state, discussed next.
Looking in the unrendered file show the intended headline
(/usr/share/man/man1/nmap.1.gz):
\fBThe six port states recognized by Nmap\fR
.PP
.\" open port state open
.RS 4
An application is actively accepting TCP connections, UDP datagrams or SCTP
associations on this port\&. F
inding these is often the primary goal of port scanning\&. Security\-minded
people know that each open por
t is an avenue for attack\&. Attackers and pen\-testers want to exploit the
open ports, while administrato
rs try to close or protect them with firewalls without thwarting legitimate
users\&. Open ports are also i
nteresting for non\-security scans because they show services available for use
on the network\&.
.RE
.PP
.\" closed port state closed
.RS 4
A closed port is accessible (it receives and responds to Nmap probe packets),
but there is no application
listening on it\&. They can be helpful in showing that a host is up on an IP
address (host discovery, or p
ing scanning), and as part of OS detection\&. Because closed ports are
reachable, it may be worth scanning
later in case some open up\&. Administrators may want to consider blocking
such ports with a firewall\&.
Then they would appear in the filtered state, discussed next\&.
.RE
.PP
Other sections look like they have the same problem.
I am not enough familiar with groff to know what the tag .\" should do,
it might look like it is a comment by the file header. Nevertheless, the
states are clearly missing from context so they should be present one
way or the other.
$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS
Release: 16.04
Codename: xenial
$ apt-cache policy nmap
nmap:
Installed: 7.01-2ubuntu2
Candidate: 7.01-2ubuntu2
Version table:
*** 7.01-2ubuntu2 500
500 http://dk.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
** Affects: nmap (Ubuntu)
Importance: Undecided
Status: New
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1684304
Title:
nmap man page lacks port state headlines
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