I suggest selecting bridged network for your adapter - this will give your virtual machine an IP address on your local network. This is an easy to use virtual machine system, you could of course alternatively use VMware or Parallels. If you need to get a Linux system up and running, a Free virtual machine is Virtualbox. Linode is great for this, providing high quality and good specifications for the price. If you are interested in doing remote scanning such as that provided by, you could get a cheap Ubuntu based VPS from one of the hundreds of providers, paying anything from $10 per month to $100 or so. You will then be able to the installation, play with Linux, and break things without affecting your base system. If you are not using a Linux based system as your main operating system, you will find it convenient and simple to fire up an installation of Ubuntu Linux in a virtual machine. The installation steps in this guide are for an Ubuntu Linux based system but could be applied, with minor changes, to other Linux flavors such as Fedora / Centos, or BSD based system.

Plus, having experience with Linux based systems is a great way to get access to a wide selection of security tools.

Nmap will run on a Windows system, however, it generally works better and is faster under Linux, so that would be my recommended platform. Use the operating system that works for you.

Getting started with Nmap Windows or Linux?

Advanced ip scanner for ubuntu