First Scan

Your First Scan

Once Boltarr is running (see Installation), here's how to discover your network in a couple of minutes.

1. Open Boltarr

Go to http://<host-ip>:12100. The left sidebar has the main tabs — Topology, Hierarchy, Services, Hosts, Scans, SSH Keys — a Subnets section, and ⚙ Settings.

Nothing is scanned yet. Start by telling Boltarr what to scan.

2. Add a subnet

In the sidebar Subnets section, click + and enter:

• Name — e.g. Home LAN
• CIDR — your network range, e.g. 192.168.1.0/24
• (optional) DHCP range — e.g. 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.254. IPs inside it are classified dynamic; outside it, static. Handy for scoping alerts later.

3. Run a scan

Open the Scans tab → Run. It's a visual nmap builder:

• Target — pick the subnet you just added.
• Profile — start with one of the built-ins:
  • Quick — discovery only (who's online). Fast, no port scanning.
  • Standard — top-1000 ports + service/version + OS detection. A good default.
  • Full — all 65,535 ports. Thorough but slow.
• A live command preview shows the exact nmap command that will run.

Click ▶ Run scan. The History sub-tab shows live progress (discovering → scanning %, with an elapsed timer), and how long each run took.

First time and nothing shows up? In Docker this almost always means bridge networking — nmap can't reach your LAN. See Installation (host networking) and Troubleshooting.

4. Read the results

Open the Hosts tab — every discovered device is listed with its IP, hostname, MAC, vendor, type, open ports, and a liveness dot (green = online). Click a row to open its detail panel (info, ports, services, changes, uptime).

• The green/red/grey dot is the liveness ping tier — it keeps checking whether each host is up.
• static / dynamic badges come from the DHCP range you set.
• Click a host to edit it — set a friendly hostname, device type, notes, or even change its IP.

5. Where to go next

• Visualize it — the Topology tab draws your network as a graph; drag nodes, draw connections, color VLANs. (Containers/VMs connect to the host they run on via a virtual link — see Troubleshooting.)
• Track services — add the services each host runs, and turn on uptime monitoring.
• Automate it — set up scheduled scans (Scans → Schedules) so Boltarr keeps itself current, and change alerts so you get pinged when something changes.
• Tune everything — see Configuration.