Find Devices that connected to network In Ubuntu

We will use terminal for finding out what devices are connected to your network in Linux. The process is very simple and easy to use even for beginners. Here we go:

Get nmap:

nmap is one of the most popular network scanning tool in Linux. Use the following command to install nmap in Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install nmap

Get IP range of the network:

Now we need to know the IP address range of the network. Use the ifconfig command to find it out. Look for wlan0 if you are using wifi or eth0 if you are using Ethernet.

user@user-notebook:~$ ifconfig

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 70:f1:a1:c2:f2:e9
inet addr:192.168.1.91 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::73f1:a1ef:fec2:f2e8/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2135051 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2013773 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1434994913 (1.4 GB) TX bytes:636207445 (636.2 MB)

The important things are highlighted in bold. As you see my IP is 192.168.1.91 and the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0 which means that the ip address range on my network varies from 192.168.1.0 to 192.168.1.255.

Scan the network:

It is advisable to use root privileges while scanning the network for more accurate information. Use the nmap command in following way:

user@user-notebook:~$ sudo nmap -sP 192.168.1.0/24
Starting Nmap 5.21 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2012-09-01 21:59 CEST

Nmap scan report for neufbox (192.168.1.1)
Host is up (0.012s latency).
MAC Address: E0:A1:D5:72:5A:5C (Unknown)
Nmap scan report for takshak-bambi (192.168.1.91)
Host is up.
Nmap scan report for android-95b23f67te05e1c8 (192.168.1.93)
Host is up (0.36s latency).