Netcat
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Usage
Normal syntax
nc [options] [host] [port]
Arbitrary TCP and UDP connections and listens.
General Options
nc -4 [options] [host] [port] Use IPv4 addressing only
nc -6 [options] [host] [port] Use IPv6 addressing only
nc -u [options] [host] [port] UDP instead of TCP
nc -l [host] [port] Listen for an incoming connection
nc -k -l [host] [port] Continue listening after client has disconnected
nc -n [host] [port] No DNS lookups
nc -p [source port] [host] [port] Use specific source port
nc -s [source ip] [host] [port] Use source IP
nc -w [timeout] [host] [port] Apply 'n' second timeout
nc -v [host] [port] Verbose output
Client Examples
nc 192.168.0.1 5051 < filename.in Transmit contents of file "filename.in"
nc 192.168.0.1 5051 > filename.out Send incoming data to "filename.out"
Server Examples
netcat -l 5050 Listen for TCP connections (port 5050). Data received is directed to STDOUT . Data is captured and
transmitted from STDOUT .
netcat -l 5051 > filename.out Data received directed to "filename.out"
Single use web server listening on port 8080
( echo -ne "HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: $(wc -c <index.html)\r\n\r\n" ; cat index.html ) | nc -l 8080
Bash while loop restarts web server after each request
while : ; do ( echo -ne "HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\nContent-Length: $(wc -c <index.html)\r\n\r\n" ; cat index.html; ) | nc -l -p 8080 ;
done
Simple Proxy
mknod backpipe p ; nc -l [proxy port] < backpipe | nc [destination host] [destination port] > pipe
Create a named pipe. Setup an a listener on proxy port. Forward requests from listener to a client which in-turn sends them onto the
destination host. The client redirects the response from the destination host into the named pipe. The listener picks up the response from the
named pipe and returns it. The named pipe thus allows the proxy to transmit data bi-directionally.
Port Scanning
nc -zv hostname.com 80 Scan a single TCP port
nc -zv hostname.com 80-84 Scan a range of ports
nc -zv hostname.com 80 84 Scan multiple ports
Notes
Thanks to biscuitNinja and the Netcat Cheat Sheet.
You can modify and improve this cheat sheet here
