How to setup nmap ping count

Your NMAP command is fine. It's the service you're trying to connect to that is the "problem".

You can find that a "server" has an open port on 80 or 8080 but still not be able to connect it. For instance, I have about three dozen polycom phones that are accessible at port 8080 but they have bum config files. When someone tries to access them at that port they aren't able to connect.

And it may depend on how you're trying to connect. Even though its port 8080 maybe you aren't supposed to use a browser to connect to it.(I know - crazy idea).

Find out what type of device you're trying to connect to using this (you'll need sudo or root):

nmap -sS -O -p80,8080 192.168.1.0/24

nmap versions lower than 5.30BETA1:

nmap -sP 192.168.1.*

newer nmap versions:

nmap -sn 192.168.1.*

This gives me hostnames along with IP adresses, and only pings the hosts to discover them. This will only give you the hostnames if you run it as root.

EDIT: As of Nmap 5.30BETA1 [2010-03-29] -sP has been replaced with -sn as the preferred way to do ping scans, while skipping port scanning, just like the comments indicate:

Previously the -PN and -sP options were recommended. This establishes a more regular syntax for some options that disable phases of a scan:

• -n no reverse DNS
• -Pn no host discovery
• -sn no port scan