Mac OS X comes with a bundled port scanner tool, just one of a variety of features tucked into the ever useful Network Utility app. That means you don’t need to bother with the command line or install more advanced tools like nmap to quickly scan for open ports on a given IP or domain, instead you can do it all through the friendly graphical interface. Despite being a fairly advanced utility, it’s actually very easy to use.

Quick sidenote: remember that newer releases of Mac OS X have relocated Network Utility to be buried in a system folder, that doesn’t mean it can’t be used, it just means you have to either make an alias, launch it from Spotlight, or get to it from System Info. For the purpose of this walkthrough we’ll use Spotlight to launch Network Utility and start the scan since it’s the easiest and quickest route, though if you plan on using the tool often you’ll probably want to make an alias yourself. OK, let’s jump right to scanning ports.

How to Scan Ports on an IP or Domain from Mac OS X

You can choose any local or remote IP to scan, if you’re solitary on a network (or even air gapped) and still want to try this out yourself, use the loopback IP of “127.0.0.1” as the target:

Hit Command+Spacebar to summon Spotlight and type “Network Utility” followed by the return key to launch the Network Utility app Select the “Port Scan” tab Enter the IP or domain name you wish to scan for open ports and choose “scan” Optional, but not necessarily recommended, you can set a port range to scan between if you just want to search for a specific set of active services

127.0.0.1 or “localhost” will just check the local Mac for open ports, if you’re new to port scanning that may be the preferred way to go since most reasonably well secured remote domains reject incoming requests or don’t respond to them.

Let the Port Scan tool run and you will quickly start to see any open TCP ports and their traditionally identified usage. For example, you may see something like this if you scan localhost (127.0.0.1):

Port Scan has started…

Port Scanning host: 127.0.0.1

Open TCP Port: 22 ssh

Open TCP Port: 80 http

Open TCP Port: 88 kerberos

Open TCP Port: 445 microsoft-ds

Open TCP Port: 548 afpovertcp

Open TCP Port: 631 ipp

Open TCP Port: 3689 daap

Visible ports are going to differ per machine depending on what services and servers are available, but if you’re scanning Macs and PC’s you’ll commonly find web servers, SMB Windows sharing port 445, AFP Apple File Sharing on port 548, maybe active visible SSH server on 22, UDP servers, and potentially a wide variety of others. The port scan will go quite high as it scans, so just let it run if you want to see everything.

If you see absolutely nothing come up but you know an IP is active with open services, either the machine isn’t broadcasting, the recipient machine is rejecting all requests, or perhaps a strong firewall is configured. This makes Network Utility’s port scanner an excellent way to quickly check security and test out potential vulnerabilities or active services on neighboring Macs, iOS devices, Windows, Linux machines, and whatever other computers are getting scanned.

Network Utility is obviously limited to the Mac, and while there are no built-in tools on the iOS side of things, it is possible to perform port scanning from an iPhone and iPad with the fing app a free tool that is very handy addition to the advanced iOS users toolkit.