Continuing on from the "Quick and dirty Python: masscan" diary, which implemented a simple port scanner in Python using masscan to detect web instances on TCP ports 80 or 443.  Masscan is perfectly good as a blunt instrument to quickly find open TCP ports across large address spaces, but for fine details it is better to use a scanner like nmap that, while much slower, is able to probe the port to get a better idea of what is running.