nmap install question

[BourneAgain]

I've used nmap for a while now and recently upgraded to 3.45 heres the problem I can use nmap as a normal user however when i log in as root i can't get nmap to open?? with a bash shell i type nmap and voila not so when i'm root. any thoughts? anyone else experience this? i would appreciate any advice thankes alot!

[skiddieleet]

that's wierd. On mine I can only run it as root. It's probably the permissions.
cd into the /usr/bin directory and check the permissions on nmap using ls -al.
There will probably be a ton of files here. I don't know how to get it to list them a page at a time.
you should probably chmod it to 744 or maybe 755.
my nmap is as follows
owner permissions read write execute
group permissions read execute
others permissions read execute

but I can only run it as root. I would say do this command in the /usr/bin directory.
chmod 755 nmap
then if your comp is like mine you should only be able to run it as root.
good luck.

[tr3kker]

I assume from your post that nmap doesn't launch when you just type 'nmap' ?
How about when you specify the whole path to nmap '/usr/bin/nmap' ?
I'd try that before you start playing with permissions...

Anyhow my permissions are as follows:
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 34328 Aug 22 14:46 bin
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 343812 Apr 28 20:43 nmap

[steve.milner]

Originally posted here by BourneAgain
I've used nmap for a while now and recently upgraded to 3.45 heres the problem I can use nmap as a normal user however when i log in as root i can't get nmap to open?? with a bash shell i type nmap and voila not so when i'm root. any thoughts? anyone else experience this? i would appreciate any advice thankes alot!

What exactly happens, what error messages are displayed, what distro are you using?

Please give as much information as possible so that we can be of help.

Steve

[BourneAgain]

h3r3tic "cd into the /usr/bin directory and check the permissions on nmap using ls -al.
There will probably be a ton of files here. I don't know how to get it to list them a page at a time." h3r3tic the command to make it one page at a time would be ls -al | more and i appreciate the help i'll try that.

To steve.milner I'm running SuSE 8.1 pro when i use bash i usualy type in nmap and it opens and if i want to run it as root i su root because we all know theres limited non root uses. after installing 3.45 i can type in "nmap" as a regular and it opens just fine but when i su root it says nmap command not found. let me know if you need more info thanks for trying to help it is very much appreciated.

[MrLinus]

I had a random thought about this..


If you are doing su root then the appropriate PATH may not be passing over. Try using su - root or su -. The hyphen denotes that the .bash_profile is read and thus, incorporates any PATH variables over the switched user.

[BourneAgain]

MsMittens i dont know how you do it but you are my tech GODDESS please if you would, explain to me how exactly that works? if you could post it or email me with why that works more indepth i would love to know more (feed my starving brain) i'm so happy it works forgive me if i'm rambling it's been a really long day. but thank you for your help

[MrLinus]

Hehe.. the su command by itself only switches just to the user and uses/inherits the "existing user's" profile or environment settings (i.e., their PATH variable info). If you type, as a regular user, echo $PATH you should get something like:

mittens@MsMittens:~$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/games:/opt/www/htdig/bin:/opt/kde/bin:/usr/lib/qt-3.1.2/bin:.

But, if you type su - <username> you will get the environment (ie. variables) for the new user. In the case of root (at least mine) looks something like:

root@MsMittens:~# echo $PATH
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/games:/opt/www/htdig/bin:/opt/kde/bin:/usr/lib/qt-3.1.2/bin

A few more directories as you can see. I hope that clarifies. BTW, this is particularly helpful when switching to special database users (like oracle and/or mysql). They tend to have very specialized variables for locations of various portions of the installed/to-be-installed database program.

Hope that helps.

[BourneAgain]

I Learn somthing new everyday!!! Thank You thats good to know!