How Do You Troubleshoot the nmap Result “Host seems down. If it is really up, but blocking our ping probes”?

Problem scenario
You use nmap and get this error from one server but not another:

Note: Host seems down. If it is really up, but blocking our ping probes, try -Pn
Nmap done: 1 IP address (0 hosts up) scanned in 3.05 seconds

There seems to be no intermediate firewall rule stopping one server. What should you do?

Solution
The error message suggests using "-Pn". We recommend you try that: nmap -Pn x.x.x.x

# (where x.x.x.x is the IP address of the server with the problem)

You may want to try "sudo " before your nmap command; the results may differ. It is possible that ICMP packets have been turned off in the intermediate networking devices.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *