User Commands nc(1) NAME nc - arbitrary TCP and UDP connections and listens SYNOPSIS nc -h nc [-46Ddnrtuvz] [-i interval] [-P proxy_username] [-p port] [-s source_ip_address] [-T ToS] [-w timeout] [-X proxy_protocol] [-x proxy_address[:port]] hostname port[s] nc -l [-46Ddkntuv] [-i interval] [-T ToS] [hostname] port nc -l [-46Ddkntuv] [-i interval] [-T ToS] -p port nc -U [-Ddtvz] [-i interval] [-w timeout] path nc -Ul [-Ddktv] [-i interval] path 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 deal with both IPv4 and IPv6. 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. Common uses include: o simple TCP proxies o shell-script based HTTP clients and servers o network daemon testing o a SOCKS or HTTP ProxyCommand for ssh(1) o and much, much more The options are as follows: -4 Forces nc to use IPv4 addresses only. -6 Forces nc to use IPv6 addresses only. -D Enable debugging on the socket. -d Do not attempt to read from stdin. -h Prints out nc help. -i interval Specifies a delay time interval between lines of text sent and received. Also causes a delay time between connections to multi- ple ports. -k Forces nc to stay listening for another connection after its cur- rent connection hostnames or ports. It is an error to use this option without the -l option. -l Used to specify that nc should listen for an incoming connection rather than initiate a connection to a remote host. It is an error to use this option in conjunction with the -s or -z options. Additionally, any timeouts specified with the -w option are ignored. -n Do not do any naming or service lookups on any addresses, hostnames or ports. Use of this option means that hostname and port arguments are restricted to numeric values. If used with -v option all addresses and ports will be printed in numeric form. (in addition to the restriction imposed on the arguments) This option does not have any effect when used in conjunction with -U option. -P proxy_username Specifies a username to present to a proxy server that requires authentication. If no username is specified then authentication will not be attempted. Proxy authentication is only supported for HTTP CONNECT proxies at present. It is an error to use this option in conjunction with -l option. -p port When used without -l option this option specifies the source port nc should use, subject to privilege restrictions and availability. When used with -l option it sets the listen port. This option can be used with -l option only provided global port argument is not specified. -r Specifies that source and/or destination ports should be chosen randomly instead of sequentially within a range or in the order that the system assigns them. It is an error to use this option in conjunction with -l option. -s source_ip_address Specifies the IP of the interface which is used to send the pack- ets. It is an error to use this option in conjunction with -l option. -T ToS Specifies IP Type of Service (ToS) for the connection. Valid values are the tokens ``lowdelay'', ``throughput'', ``reliability'', or an 8-bit hexadecimal value preceded by ``0x''. -t Causes nc to send RFC 854 DON'T and WON'T responses to RFC 854 DO and WILL requests. This makes it possible to use nc to script telnet sessions. -U Specifies to use Unix Domain Sockets. Use of this option without -l option means nc will become AF_UNIX client; with -l option a AF_UNIX server is created. If this option is used, a single argument has to be provided to nc. That argument needs to be a valid Unix domain path, not a host name or port. -u Use UDP instead of the default option of TCP. -v Have nc give more verbose output. -w timeout If a connection and stdin are idle for more than timeout seconds, then the connection is silently closed. The -w flag has no ef- fect on the -l option, i.e. nc will listen forever for a connec- tion, with or without the -w flag. The default is no timeout. -X proxy_protocol Requests that nc should use the specified protocol when talking to the proxy server. Supported protocols are ``4'' (SOCKS v.4), ``5'' (SOCKS v.5) and ``connect'' (HTTPS proxy). If the protocol is not specified, SOCKS version 5 is used. It is an error to use this option in conjunction with -l option. -x proxy_address[:port] Requests that nc should connect to hostname using a proxy at proxy_address and port. If port is not specified, the well-known port for the proxy protocol is used (1080 for SOCKS, 3128 for HTTPS). It is an error to use this option in conjunction with -l option. -z Specifies that nc should just scan for listening daemons, without sending any data to them. It is an error to use this option in conjunction with -l option. hostname can be a numerical IP address or a symbolic hostname (unless the -n option is given). In general, a hostname must be specified, unless the -l option is given or -U is used (in which case the argument is a path). If hostname argument is specified with -l option then port argument must be given as well and nc will try to bind to that address and port. If hostname argument is not specified with -l option then nc will try to listen on a wildcard socket for given port. port[s] can be single integers or ranges. Ranges are in the form nn-mm. In general, a destination port must be specified, unless the -U option is given (in which case a Unix Domain Socket path must be specified instead of a hostname). CLIENT/SERVER MODEL It is quite simple to build a very basic client/server model using nc. On one console, start nc listening on a specific port for a connection. For example: $ nc -l 1234 nc is now listening on port 1234 for a connection. On a second console (or a second machine), connect to the machine and port being listened on: $ nc 127.0.0.1 1234 There should now be a connection between the ports. Anything typed at the second console will be concatenated to the first, and vice-versa. After the connection has been set up, nc does not really care which side is being used as a `server' and which side is being used as a `client'. The connection may be terminated using an EOF (`^D'). DATA TRANSFER The example in the previous section can be expanded to build a basic data transfer model. Any information input into one end of the connection will be output to the other end, and input and output can be easily cap- tured in order to emulate file transfer. Start by using nc to listen on a specific port, with output captured into a file: $ nc -l 1234 > filename.out Using a second machine, connect to the listening nc process, feeding it the file which is to be transferred: $ nc host.example.com 1234 < filename.in After the file has been transferred, the connection will close automati- cally. TALKING TO SERVERS It is sometimes useful to talk to servers ``by hand'' rather than through a user interface. It can aid in troubleshooting, when it might be neces- sary to verify what data a server is sending in response to commands is- sued by the client. For example, to retrieve the home page of a web site: $ echo -n "GET / HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n" | nc host.example.com 80 Note that this also displays the headers sent by the web server. They can be filtered, using a tool such as sed(1), if necessary. More complicated examples can be built up when the user knows the format of requests required by the server. As another example, an email may be submitted to an SMTP server using: $ nc localhost 25 << EOF HELO host.example.com MAIL FROM: RCPT TO: DATA Body of email. . QUIT EOF PORT SCANNING It may be useful to know which ports are open and running services on a target machine. The -z flag can be used to tell nc to report open ports, rather than initiate a connection. For example: $ nc -z host.example.com 20-30 Connection to host.example.com 22 port [tcp/ssh] succeeded! Connection to host.example.com 25 port [tcp/smtp] succeeded! The port range was specified to limit the search to ports 20 - 30. Alternatively, it might be useful to know which server software is run- ning, and which versions. This information is often contained within the greeting banners. In order to retrieve these, it is necessary to first make a connection, and then break the connection when the banner has been retrieved. This can be accomplished by specifying a small timeout with the -w flag, or perhaps by issuing a "QUIT" command to the server: $ echo "QUIT" | nc host.example.com 20-30 SSH-2.0-Sun_SSH_1.1 Protocol mismatch. 220 host.example.com IMS SMTP Receiver Version 0.84 Ready INETD CAPABILITIES One of the possible uses is to create simple services via inetd(1M). Following example will create redirect from TCP port 8080 to port 80 on host 'realwww': # cat << EOF >> /etc/services wwwredir 8080/tcp # WWW redirect EOF # cat << EOF > /tmp/wwwredir.conf wwwredir stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/bin/nc /usr/bin/nc -w 3 realwww 80 EOF # inetconv -i /tmp/wwwredir.conf wwwredir -> /var/svc/manifest/network/wwwredir-tcp.xml Importing wwwredir-tcp.xml ...Done # inetadm -l wwwredir/tcp SCOPE NAME=VALUE name="wwwredir" endpoint_type="stream" proto="tcp" isrpc=FALSE wait=FALSE exec="/usr/bin/nc -w 3 realwww 80" arg0="/usr/bin/nc" user="nobody" default bind_addr="" default bind_fail_max=-1 default bind_fail_interval=-1 default max_con_rate=-1 default max_copies=-1 default con_rate_offline=-1 default failrate_cnt=40 default failrate_interval=60 default inherit_env=TRUE default tcp_trace=TRUE default tcp_wrappers=FALSE EXAMPLES Open a TCP connection to port 42 of host.example.com, using port 3141 as the source port, with a timeout of 5 seconds: $ nc -p 3141 -w 5 host.example.com 42 Open a UDP connection to port 53 of host.example.com: $ nc -u host.example.com 53 Open a TCP connection to port 42 of host.example.com using 10.1.2.3 as the IP for the local end of the connection: $ nc -s 10.1.2.3 host.example.com 42 Create and listen on a Unix Domain Socket: $ nc -lU /var/tmp/dsocket Create and listen on a UDP socket with associated port 8888: $ nc -u -l -p 8888 which is the same as: $ nc -u -l 8888 Create and listen on a TCP socket with associated port 2222 and bind to address 127.0.0.1 only: $ nc -l 127.0.0.1 2222 Connect to port 42 of host.example.com via an HTTP proxy at 10.2.3.4, port 8080. This example could also be used by ssh(1); see the ProxyCommand directive in ssh_config(4) for more information. $ nc -x10.2.3.4:8080 -Xconnect host.example.com 42 The same example again, this time enabling proxy authentication with username ``ruser'' if the proxy requires it: $ nc -x10.2.3.4:8080 -Xconnect -Pruser host.example.com 42 ATTRIBUTES See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri- butes: ____________________________________________________________ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | |_____________________________|_____________________________| | Availability | SUNWnetcat | |_____________________________|_____________________________| | Interface Stability | See below. | |_____________________________|_____________________________| The package name is Committed. The command line syntax is Committed for the followig options and their arguments (if any): -4, -6, -l, -n, -p, -u and -w. The name and port list arguments are Committed. Port range syntax is Uncommitted. Stability level for all other command line options (and their arguments) is Uncommitted. SEE ALSO cat(1), inetadm(1M), inetconv(1M), ssh(1) AUTHORS Original implementation by *Hobbit* . Rewritten with IPv6 support by Eric Jackson . NOTES UDP port scans will always succeed (i.e. report the port as open), ren- dering the -uz combination of flags relatively useless.