NC(1) BSD General Commands Manual NC(1)
NAME
nc - arbitrary TCP and UDP connections and listens
SYNOPSIS
nc [-e command] [-g intermediates] [-G hopcount] [-i interval] [-lnrtuvz] [-o filename]
[-p source port] [-s ip address] [-w timeout] [hostname] [port[s...]]
DESCRIPTION
The nc (or netcat) utility is used for just about anything under the sun involving TCP or
UDP. It can open TCP connections, send UDP packets, listen on arbitrary TCP and UDP ports,
do port scanning, and source routing. Unlike telnet(1), nc scripts nicely, and separates
error messages onto standard error instead of sending them to standard output, as telnet(1)
does with some.
Destination ports can be single integers, names as listed in services(5), or ranges. Ranges
are in the form nn-mm, and several separate ports and/or ranges may be specified on the com-
mand line.
Common uses include:
? simple TCP proxies
? shell-script based HTTP clients and servers
? network daemon testing
? source routing based connectivity testing
? and much, much more
The options are as follows:
-e command
Execute the specified command, using data from the network for stdin, and sending
stdout and stderr to the network. This option is only present if nc was compiled
with the GAPING_SECURITY_HOLE compile time option, since it allows users to make
arbitrary programs available to anyone on the network.
-g intermediate-host
Specifies a hop along a loose source routed path. Can be used more than once to
build a chain of hop points.
-G pointer
Positions the "hop counter" within the list of machines in the path of a source
routed packet. Must be a multiple of 4.
-i seconds
Specifies a delay time interval between lines of text sent and received. Also
causes a delay time between connections to multiple ports.
-l Is used to specify that nc should listen for an incoming connection, rather than
initiate a connection to a remote host. Any hostname/IP address and port arguments
restrict the source of inbound connections to only that address and source port.
-n Do not do DNS lookups on any of the specified addresses or hostnames, or names of
port numbers from /etc/services.
-o filename
Create a hexadecimal log of data transferred in the specified file. Each line
begins with ''<'' or ''>''. ''<'' means "from the net" and ''>'' means "to the
net".
-p port
Specifies the source port nc should use, subject to privilege restrictions and
availability.
-r Specifies that source and/or destination ports should be chosen semi-randomly
instead of sequentially within a range or in the order that the system assigns.
-s hostname/ip-address
Specifies the IP of the interface which is used to send the packets. On some plat-
forms, this can be used for UDP spoofing by using ifconfig(8) to bring up a dummy
interface with the desired source IP address.
-t Causes nc to send RFC854 DON'T and WON'T responses to RFC854 DO and WILL requests.
This makes it possible to use nc to script telnet sessions. The presence of this
option can be enabled or disabled as a compile-time option.
-u Use UDP instead of TCP. On most platforms, nc will behave as if a connection is
established until it receives an ICMP packet indicating that there is no program
listening to what it sends.
-v Verbose. Cause nc to display connection information. Using -v more than once will
cause nc to become even more verbose.
-w timeout
Specifies the number of seconds nc should wait before deciding that an attempt to
establish a connection is hopeless. Also used to specify how long to wait for more
network data after standard input closes.
-z Specifies that nc should just scan for listening daemons, without sending any data
to them. Diagnostic messages about refused connections will not be displayed unless
-v is specified twice.
EXAMPLES
nc
Wait for the user to type what would normally be command-line arguments in at stdin.
nc example.host 42
Open a TCP connection to port 42 of example.host. If the connection fails, do not dis-
play any error messages, but simply exit.
nc -p 31337 example.host 42
Open a TCP connection to port 42 of example.host, and use port 31337 as the source port.
nc -w 5 example.host 42
Open a TCP connection to port 42 of example.host, and time out after five seconds while
attempting to connect.
nc -u example.host 53
Send any data from stdin to UDP port 53 of example.host, and display any data returned.
nc -s 10.1.2.3 example.host 42
Open a TCP connection to port 42 of example.host using 10.1.2.3 as the IP for the local
end of the connection.
nc -v example.host 42
Open a TCP connection to port 42 of example.host, displaying some diagnostic messages on
stderr.
nc -v -v example.host 42
Open a TCP connection to port 42 of example.host, displaying all diagnostic messages on
stderr.
nc -v -z example.host 20-30
Attempt to open TCP connections to ports 20 through 30 of example.host, and report which
ones nc was able to connect to.
nc -v -u -z -w 3 example.host 20-30
Send UDP packets to ports 20-30 of example.host, and report which ones did not respond
with an ICMP packet after three seconds.
nc -l -p 3000
Listen on TCP port 3000, and once there is a connection, send stdin to the remote host,
and send data from the remote host to stdout.
echo foobar | nc example.host 1000
Connect to port 1000 of example.host, send the string "foobar" followed by a newline, and
move data from port 1000 of example.host to stdout until example.host closes the connec-
tion.
SEE ALSO
cat(1), telnet(1)
The netcat README.
AUTHOR
*Hobbit* []
BSD August 1, 1996 BSD
|