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author | ericj <> | 2001-06-25 22:41:26 +0000 |
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committer | ericj <> | 2001-06-25 22:41:26 +0000 |
commit | c1a04a96f0f90d6447fb2b5ce7c4fc1d4d6deadb (patch) | |
tree | 64cfb54e71714ae6574d40d4a928c438fe874200 /src/usr.bin | |
parent | abbf925da56bb0d7aac937d8e270af8f025c8fe5 (diff) | |
download | openbsd-c1a04a96f0f90d6447fb2b5ce7c4fc1d4d6deadb.tar.gz openbsd-c1a04a96f0f90d6447fb2b5ce7c4fc1d4d6deadb.tar.bz2 openbsd-c1a04a96f0f90d6447fb2b5ce7c4fc1d4d6deadb.zip |
remove old cruft
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1 | Netcat 1.10 | ||
2 | =========== /\_/\ | ||
3 | / 0 0 \ | ||
4 | Netcat is a simple Unix utility which reads and writes data ====v==== | ||
5 | across network connections, using TCP or UDP protocol. \ W / | ||
6 | It is designed to be a reliable "back-end" tool that can | | _ | ||
7 | be used directly or easily driven by other programs and / ___ \ / | ||
8 | scripts. At the same time, it is a feature-rich network / / \ \ | | ||
9 | debugging and exploration tool, since it can create almost (((-----)))-' | ||
10 | any kind of connection you would need and has several / | ||
11 | interesting built-in capabilities. Netcat, or "nc" as the ( ___ | ||
12 | actual program is named, should have been supplied long ago \__.=|___E | ||
13 | as another one of those cryptic but standard Unix tools. / | ||
14 | |||
15 | In the simplest usage, "nc host port" creates a TCP connection to the given | ||
16 | port on the given target host. Your standard input is then sent to the host, | ||
17 | and anything that comes back across the connection is sent to your standard | ||
18 | output. This continues indefinitely, until the network side of the connection | ||
19 | shuts down. Note that this behavior is different from most other applications | ||
20 | which shut everything down and exit after an end-of-file on the standard input. | ||
21 | |||
22 | Netcat can also function as a server, by listening for inbound connections | ||
23 | on arbitrary ports and then doing the same reading and writing. With minor | ||
24 | limitations, netcat doesn't really care if it runs in "client" or "server" | ||
25 | mode -- it still shovels data back and forth until there isn't any more left. | ||
26 | In either mode, shutdown can be forced after a configurable time of inactivity | ||
27 | on the network side. | ||
28 | |||
29 | And it can do this via UDP too, so netcat is possibly the "udp telnet-like" | ||
30 | application you always wanted for testing your UDP-mode servers. UDP, as the | ||
31 | "U" implies, gives less reliable data transmission than TCP connections and | ||
32 | some systems may have trouble sending large amounts of data that way, but it's | ||
33 | still a useful capability to have. | ||
34 | |||
35 | You may be asking "why not just use telnet to connect to arbitrary ports?" | ||
36 | Valid question, and here are some reasons. Telnet has the "standard input | ||
37 | EOF" problem, so one must introduce calculated delays in driving scripts to | ||
38 | allow network output to finish. This is the main reason netcat stays running | ||
39 | until the *network* side closes. Telnet also will not transfer arbitrary | ||
40 | binary data, because certain characters are interpreted as telnet options and | ||
41 | are thus removed from the data stream. Telnet also emits some of its | ||
42 | diagnostic messages to standard output, where netcat keeps such things | ||
43 | religiously separated from its *output* and will never modify any of the real | ||
44 | data in transit unless you *really* want it to. And of course telnet is | ||
45 | incapable of listening for inbound connections, or using UDP instead. Netcat | ||
46 | doesn't have any of these limitations, is much smaller and faster than telnet, | ||
47 | and has many other advantages. | ||
48 | |||
49 | Some of netcat's major features are: | ||
50 | |||
51 | Outbound or inbound connections, TCP or UDP, to or from any ports | ||
52 | Full DNS forward/reverse checking, with appropriate warnings | ||
53 | Ability to use any local source port | ||
54 | Ability to use any locally-configured network source address | ||
55 | Built-in port-scanning capabilities, with randomizer | ||
56 | Built-in loose source-routing capability | ||
57 | Can read command line arguments from standard input | ||
58 | Slow-send mode, one line every N seconds | ||
59 | Hex dump of transmitted and received data | ||
60 | Optional ability to let another program service established connections | ||
61 | Optional telnet-options responder | ||
62 | |||
63 | Efforts have been made to have netcat "do the right thing" in all its various | ||
64 | modes. If you believe that it is doing the wrong thing under whatever | ||
65 | circumstances, please notify me and tell me how you think it should behave. | ||
66 | If netcat is not able to do some task you think up, minor tweaks to the code | ||
67 | will probably fix that. It provides a basic and easily-modified template for | ||
68 | writing other network applications, and I certainly encourage people to make | ||
69 | custom mods and send in any improvements they make to it. This is the second | ||
70 | release; the overall differences from 1.00 are relatively minor and have mostly | ||
71 | to do with portability and bugfixes. Many people provided greatly appreciated | ||
72 | fixes and comments on the 1.00 release. Continued feedback from the Internet | ||
73 | community is always welcome! | ||
74 | |||
75 | Netcat is entirely my own creation, although plenty of other code was used as | ||
76 | examples. It is freely given away to the Internet community in the hope that | ||
77 | it will be useful, with no restrictions except giving credit where it is due. | ||
78 | No GPLs, Berkeley copyrights or any of that nonsense. The author assumes NO | ||
79 | responsibility for how anyone uses it. If netcat makes you rich somehow and | ||
80 | you're feeling generous, mail me a check. If you are affiliated in any way | ||
81 | with Microsoft Network, get a life. Always ski in control. Comments, | ||
82 | questions, and patches to hobbit@avian.org. | ||
83 | |||
84 | Building | ||
85 | ======== | ||
86 | |||
87 | Compiling is fairly straightforward. Examine the Makefile for a SYSTYPE that | ||
88 | matches yours, and do "make <systype>". The executable "nc" should appear. | ||
89 | If there is no relevant SYSTYPE section, try "generic". If you create new | ||
90 | sections for generic.h and Makefile to support another platform, please follow | ||
91 | the given format and mail back the diffs. | ||
92 | |||
93 | There are a couple of other settable #defines in netcat.c, which you can | ||
94 | include as DFLAGS="-DTHIS -DTHAT" to your "make" invocation without having to | ||
95 | edit the Makefile. See the following discussions for what they are and do. | ||
96 | |||
97 | If you want to link against the resolver library on SunOS [recommended] and | ||
98 | you have BIND 4.9.x, you may need to change XLIBS=-lresolv in the Makefile to | ||
99 | XLIBS="-lresolv -l44bsd". | ||
100 | |||
101 | Linux sys/time.h does not really support presetting of FD_SETSIZE; a harmless | ||
102 | warning is issued. | ||
103 | |||
104 | Some systems may warn about pointer types for signal(). No problem, though. | ||
105 | |||
106 | Exploration of features | ||
107 | ======================= | ||
108 | |||
109 | Where to begin? Netcat is at the same time so simple and versatile, it's like | ||
110 | trying to describe everything you can do with your Swiss Army knife. This will | ||
111 | go over the basics; you should also read the usage examples and notes later on | ||
112 | which may give you even more ideas about what this sort of tool is good for. | ||
113 | |||
114 | If no command arguments are given at all, netcat asks for them, reads a line | ||
115 | from standard input, and breaks it up into arguments internally. This can be | ||
116 | useful when driving netcat from certain types of scripts, with the side effect | ||
117 | of hiding your command line arguments from "ps" displays. | ||
118 | |||
119 | The host argument can be a name or IP address. If -n is specified, netcat | ||
120 | will only accept numeric IP addresses and do no DNS lookups for anything. If | ||
121 | -n is not given and -v is turned on, netcat will do a full forward and reverse | ||
122 | name and address lookup for the host, and warn you about the all-too-common | ||
123 | problem of mismatched names in the DNS. This often takes a little longer for | ||
124 | connection setup, but is useful to know about. There are circumstances under | ||
125 | which this can *save* time, such as when you want to know the name for some IP | ||
126 | address and also connect there. Netcat will just tell you all about it, saving | ||
127 | the manual steps of looking up the hostname yourself. Normally mismatch- | ||
128 | checking is case-insensitive per the DNS spec, but you can define ANAL at | ||
129 | compile time to make it case-sensitive -- sometimes useful for uncovering minor | ||
130 | errors in your own DNS files while poking around your networks. | ||
131 | |||
132 | A port argument is required for outbound connections, and can be numeric or a | ||
133 | name as listed in /etc/services. If -n is specified, only numeric arguments | ||
134 | are valid. Special syntax and/or more than one port argument cause different | ||
135 | behavior -- see details below about port-scanning. | ||
136 | |||
137 | The -v switch controls the verbosity level of messages sent to standard error. | ||
138 | You will probably want to run netcat most of the time with -v turned on, so you | ||
139 | can see info about the connections it is trying to make. You will probably | ||
140 | also want to give a smallish -w argument, which limits the time spent trying to | ||
141 | make a connection. I usually alias "nc" to "nc -v -w 3", which makes it | ||
142 | function just about the same for things I would otherwise use telnet to do. | ||
143 | The timeout is easily changed by a subsequent -w argument which overrides the | ||
144 | earlier one. Specifying -v more than once makes diagnostic output MORE | ||
145 | verbose. If -v is not specified at all, netcat silently does its work unless | ||
146 | some error happens, whereupon it describes the error and exits with a nonzero | ||
147 | status. Refused network connections are generally NOT considered to be errors, | ||
148 | unless you only asked for a single TCP port and it was refused. | ||
149 | |||
150 | Note that -w also sets the network inactivity timeout. This does not have any | ||
151 | effect until standard input closes, but then if nothing further arrives from | ||
152 | the network in the next <timeout> seconds, netcat tries to read the net once | ||
153 | more for good measure, and then closes and exits. There are a lot of network | ||
154 | services now that accept a small amount of input and return a large amount of | ||
155 | output, such as Gopher and Web servers, which is the main reason netcat was | ||
156 | written to "block" on the network staying open rather than standard input. | ||
157 | Handling the timeout this way gives uniform behavior with network servers that | ||
158 | *don't* close by themselves until told to. | ||
159 | |||
160 | UDP connections are opened instead of TCP when -u is specified. These aren't | ||
161 | really "connections" per se since UDP is a connectionless protocol, although | ||
162 | netcat does internally use the "connected UDP socket" mechanism that most | ||
163 | kernels support. Although netcat claims that an outgoing UDP connection is | ||
164 | "open" immediately, no data is sent until something is read from standard | ||
165 | input. Only thereafter is it possible to determine whether there really is a | ||
166 | UDP server on the other end, and often you just can't tell. Most UDP protocols | ||
167 | use timeouts and retries to do their thing and in many cases won't bother | ||
168 | answering at all, so you should specify a timeout and hope for the best. You | ||
169 | will get more out of UDP connections if standard input is fed from a source | ||
170 | of data that looks like various kinds of server requests. | ||
171 | |||
172 | To obtain a hex dump file of the data sent either way, use "-o logfile". The | ||
173 | dump lines begin with "<" or ">" to respectively indicate "from the net" or | ||
174 | "to the net", and contain the total count per direction, and hex and ascii | ||
175 | representations of the traffic. Capturing a hex dump naturally slows netcat | ||
176 | down a bit, so don't use it where speed is critical. | ||
177 | |||
178 | Netcat can bind to any local port, subject to privilege restrictions and ports | ||
179 | that are already in use. It is also possible to use a specific local network | ||
180 | source address if it is that of a network interface on your machine. [Note: | ||
181 | this does not work correctly on all platforms.] Use "-p portarg" to grab a | ||
182 | specific local port, and "-s ip-addr" or "-s name" to have that be your source | ||
183 | IP address. This is often referred to as "anchoring the socket". Root users | ||
184 | can grab any unused source port including the "reserved" ones less than 1024. | ||
185 | Absence of -p will bind to whatever unused port the system gives you, just like | ||
186 | any other normal client connection, unless you use -r [see below]. | ||
187 | |||
188 | Listen mode will cause netcat to wait for an inbound connection, and then the | ||
189 | same data transfer happens. Thus, you can do "nc -l -p 1234 < filename" and | ||
190 | when someone else connects to your port 1234, the file is sent to them whether | ||
191 | they wanted it or not. Listen mode is generally used along with a local port | ||
192 | argument -- this is required for UDP mode, while TCP mode can have the system | ||
193 | assign one and tell you what it is if -v is turned on. If you specify a target | ||
194 | host and optional port in listen mode, netcat will accept an inbound connection | ||
195 | only from that host and if you specify one, only from that foreign source port. | ||
196 | In verbose mode you'll be informed about the inbound connection, including what | ||
197 | address and port it came from, and since listening on "any" applies to several | ||
198 | possibilities, which address it came *to* on your end. If the system supports | ||
199 | IP socket options, netcat will attempt to retrieve any such options from an | ||
200 | inbound connection and print them out in hex. | ||
201 | |||
202 | If netcat is compiled with -DGAPING_SECURITY_HOLE, the -e argument specifies | ||
203 | a program to exec after making or receiving a successful connection. In the | ||
204 | listening mode, this works similarly to "inetd" but only for a single instance. | ||
205 | Use with GREAT CARE. This piece of the code is normally not enabled; if you | ||
206 | know what you're doing, have fun. This hack also works in UDP mode. Note that | ||
207 | you can only supply -e with the name of the program, but no arguments. If you | ||
208 | want to launch something with an argument list, write a two-line wrapper script | ||
209 | or just use inetd like always. | ||
210 | |||
211 | If netcat is compiled with -DTELNET, the -t argument enables it to respond | ||
212 | to telnet option negotiation [always in the negative, i.e. DONT or WONT]. | ||
213 | This allows it to connect to a telnetd and get past the initial negotiation | ||
214 | far enough to get a login prompt from the server. Since this feature has | ||
215 | the potential to modify the data stream, it is not enabled by default. You | ||
216 | have to understand why you might need this and turn on the #define yourself. | ||
217 | |||
218 | Data from the network connection is always delivered to standard output as | ||
219 | efficiently as possible, using large 8K reads and writes. Standard input is | ||
220 | normally sent to the net the same way, but the -i switch specifies an "interval | ||
221 | time" which slows this down considerably. Standard input is still read in | ||
222 | large batches, but netcat then tries to find where line breaks exist and sends | ||
223 | one line every interval time. Note that if standard input is a terminal, data | ||
224 | is already read line by line, so unless you make the -i interval rather long, | ||
225 | what you type will go out at a fairly normal rate. -i is really designed | ||
226 | for use when you want to "measure out" what is read from files or pipes. | ||
227 | |||
228 | Port-scanning is a popular method for exploring what's out there. Netcat | ||
229 | accepts its commands with options first, then the target host, and everything | ||
230 | thereafter is interpreted as port names or numbers, or ranges of ports in M-N | ||
231 | syntax. CAVEAT: some port names in /etc/services contain hyphens -- netcat | ||
232 | currently will not correctly parse those, so specify ranges using numbers if | ||
233 | you can. If more than one port is thus specified, netcat connects to *all* of | ||
234 | them, sending the same batch of data from standard input [up to 8K worth] to | ||
235 | each one that is successfully connected to. Specifying multiple ports also | ||
236 | suppresses diagnostic messages about refused connections, unless -v is | ||
237 | specified twice for "more verbosity". This way you normally get notified only | ||
238 | about genuinely open connections. Example: "nc -v -w 2 -z target 20-30" will | ||
239 | try connecting to every port between 20 and 30 [inclusive] at the target, and | ||
240 | will likely inform you about an FTP server, telnet server, and mailer along the | ||
241 | way. The -z switch prevents sending any data to a TCP connection and very | ||
242 | limited probe data to a UDP connection, and is thus useful as a fast scanning | ||
243 | mode just to see what ports the target is listening on. To limit scanning | ||
244 | speed if desired, -i will insert a delay between each port probe. There are | ||
245 | some pitfalls with regard to UDP scanning, described later, but in general it | ||
246 | works well. | ||
247 | |||
248 | For each range of ports specified, scanning is normally done downward within | ||
249 | that range. If the -r switch is used, scanning hops randomly around within | ||
250 | that range and reports open ports as it finds them. [If you want them listed | ||
251 | in order regardless, pipe standard error through "sort"...] In addition, if | ||
252 | random mode is in effect, the local source ports are also randomized. This | ||
253 | prevents netcat from exhibiting any kind of regular pattern in its scanning. | ||
254 | You can exert fairly fine control over your scan by judicious use of -r and | ||
255 | selected port ranges to cover. If you use -r for a single connection, the | ||
256 | source port will have a random value above 8192, rather than the next one the | ||
257 | kernel would have assigned you. Note that selecting a specific local port | ||
258 | with -p overrides any local-port randomization. | ||
259 | |||
260 | Many people are interested in testing network connectivity using IP source | ||
261 | routing, even if it's only to make sure their own firewalls are blocking | ||
262 | source-routed packets. On systems that support it, the -g switch can be used | ||
263 | multiple times [up to 8] to construct a loose-source-routed path for your | ||
264 | connection, and the -G argument positions the "hop pointer" within the list. | ||
265 | If your network allows source-routed traffic in and out, you can test | ||
266 | connectivity to your own services via remote points in the internet. Note that | ||
267 | although newer BSD-flavor telnets also have source-routing capability, it isn't | ||
268 | clearly documented and the command syntax is somewhat clumsy. Netcat's | ||
269 | handling of "-g" is modeled after "traceroute". | ||
270 | |||
271 | Netcat tries its best to behave just like "cat". It currently does nothing to | ||
272 | terminal input modes, and does no end-of-line conversion. Standard input from | ||
273 | a terminal is read line by line with normal editing characters in effect. You | ||
274 | can freely suspend out of an interactive connection and resume. ^C or whatever | ||
275 | your interrupt character is will make netcat close the network connection and | ||
276 | exit. A switch to place the terminal in raw mode has been considered, but so | ||
277 | far has not been necessary. You can send raw binary data by reading it out of | ||
278 | a file or piping from another program, so more meaningful effort would be spent | ||
279 | writing an appropriate front-end driver. | ||
280 | |||
281 | Netcat is not an "arbitrary packet generator", but the ability to talk to raw | ||
282 | sockets and/or nit/bpf/dlpi may appear at some point. Such things are clearly | ||
283 | useful; I refer you to Darren Reed's excellent ip_filter package, which now | ||
284 | includes a tool to construct and send raw packets with any contents you want. | ||
285 | |||
286 | Example uses -- the light side | ||
287 | ============================== | ||
288 | |||
289 | Again, this is a very partial list of possibilities, but it may get you to | ||
290 | think up more applications for netcat. Driving netcat with simple shell or | ||
291 | expect scripts is an easy and flexible way to do fairly complex tasks, | ||
292 | especially if you're not into coding network tools in C. My coding isn't | ||
293 | particularly strong either [although undoubtedly better after writing this | ||
294 | thing!], so I tend to construct bare-metal tools like this that I can trivially | ||
295 | plug into other applications. Netcat doubles as a teaching tool -- one can | ||
296 | learn a great deal about more complex network protocols by trying to simulate | ||
297 | them through raw connections! | ||
298 | |||
299 | An example of netcat as a backend for something else is the shell-script | ||
300 | Web browser, which simply asks for the relevant parts of a URL and pipes | ||
301 | "GET /what/ever" into a netcat connection to the server. I used to do this | ||
302 | with telnet, and had to use calculated sleep times and other stupidity to | ||
303 | kludge around telnet's limitations. Netcat guarantees that I get the whole | ||
304 | page, and since it transfers all the data unmodified, I can even pull down | ||
305 | binary image files and display them elsewhere later. Some folks may find the | ||
306 | idea of a shell-script web browser silly and strange, but it starts up and | ||
307 | gets me my info a hell of a lot faster than a GUI browser and doesn't hide | ||
308 | any contents of links and forms and such. This is included, as scripts/web, | ||
309 | along with several other web-related examples. | ||
310 | |||
311 | Netcat is an obvious replacement for telnet as a tool for talking to daemons. | ||
312 | For example, it is easier to type "nc host 25", talk to someone's mailer, and | ||
313 | just ^C out than having to type ^]c or QUIT as telnet would require you to do. | ||
314 | You can quickly catalog the services on your network by telling netcat to | ||
315 | connect to well-known services and collect greetings, or at least scan for open | ||
316 | ports. You'll probably want to collect netcat's diagnostic messages in your | ||
317 | output files, so be sure to include standard error in the output using | ||
318 | `>& file' in *csh or `> file 2>&1' in bourne shell. | ||
319 | |||
320 | A scanning example: "echo QUIT | nc -v -w 5 target 20-250 500-600 5990-7000" | ||
321 | will inform you about a target's various well-known TCP servers, including | ||
322 | r-services, X, IRC, and maybe a few you didn't expect. Sending in QUIT and | ||
323 | using the timeout will almost guarantee that you see some kind of greeting or | ||
324 | error from each service, which usually indicates what it is and what version. | ||
325 | [Beware of the "chargen" port, though...] SATAN uses exactly this technique to | ||
326 | collect host information, and indeed some of the ideas herein were taken from | ||
327 | the SATAN backend tools. If you script this up to try every host in your | ||
328 | subnet space and just let it run, you will not only see all the services, | ||
329 | you'll find out about hosts that aren't correctly listed in your DNS. Then you | ||
330 | can compare new snapshots against old snapshots to see changes. For going | ||
331 | after particular services, a more intrusive example is in scripts/probe. | ||
332 | |||
333 | Netcat can be used as a simple data transfer agent, and it doesn't really | ||
334 | matter which end is the listener and which end is the client -- input at one | ||
335 | side arrives at the other side as output. It is helpful to start the listener | ||
336 | at the receiving side with no timeout specified, and then give the sending side | ||
337 | a small timeout. That way the listener stays listening until you contact it, | ||
338 | and after data stops flowing the client will time out, shut down, and take the | ||
339 | listener with it. Unless the intervening network is fraught with problems, | ||
340 | this should be completely reliable, and you can always increase the timeout. A | ||
341 | typical example of something "rsh" is often used for: on one side, | ||
342 | |||
343 | nc -l -p 1234 | uncompress -c | tar xvfp - | ||
344 | |||
345 | and then on the other side | ||
346 | |||
347 | tar cfp - /some/dir | compress -c | nc -w 3 othermachine 1234 | ||
348 | |||
349 | will transfer the contents of a directory from one machine to another, without | ||
350 | having to worry about .rhosts files, user accounts, or inetd configurations | ||
351 | at either end. Again, it matters not which is the listener or receiver; the | ||
352 | "tarring" machine could just as easily be running the listener instead. One | ||
353 | could conceivably use a scheme like this for backups, by having cron-jobs fire | ||
354 | up listeners and backup handlers [which can be restricted to specific addresses | ||
355 | and ports between each other] and pipe "dump" or "tar" on one machine to "dd | ||
356 | of=/dev/tapedrive" on another as usual. Since netcat returns a nonzero exit | ||
357 | status for a denied listener connection, scripts to handle such tasks could | ||
358 | easily log and reject connect attempts from third parties, and then retry. | ||
359 | |||
360 | Another simple data-transfer example: shipping things to a PC that doesn't have | ||
361 | any network applications yet except a TCP stack and a web browser. Point the | ||
362 | browser at an arbitrary port on a Unix server by telling it to download | ||
363 | something like http://unixbox:4444/foo, and have a listener on the Unix side | ||
364 | ready to ship out a file when the connect comes in. The browser may pervert | ||
365 | binary data when told to save the URL, but you can dig the raw data out of | ||
366 | the on-disk cache. | ||
367 | |||
368 | If you build netcat with GAPING_SECURITY_HOLE defined, you can use it as an | ||
369 | "inetd" substitute to test experimental network servers that would otherwise | ||
370 | run under "inetd". A script or program will have its input and output hooked | ||
371 | to the network the same way, perhaps sans some fancier signal handling. Given | ||
372 | that most network services do not bind to a particular local address, whether | ||
373 | they are under "inetd" or not, it is possible for netcat avoid the "address | ||
374 | already in use" error by binding to a specific address. This lets you [as | ||
375 | root, for low ports] place netcat "in the way" of a standard service, since | ||
376 | inbound connections are generally sent to such specifically-bound listeners | ||
377 | first and fall back to the ones bound to "any". This allows for a one-off | ||
378 | experimental simulation of some service, without having to screw around with | ||
379 | inetd.conf. Running with -v turned on and collecting a connection log from | ||
380 | standard error is recommended. | ||
381 | |||
382 | Netcat as well can make an outbound connection and then run a program or script | ||
383 | on the originating end, with input and output connected to the same network | ||
384 | port. This "inverse inetd" capability could enhance the backup-server concept | ||
385 | described above or help facilitate things such as a "network dialback" concept. | ||
386 | The possibilities are many and varied here; if such things are intended as | ||
387 | security mechanisms, it may be best to modify netcat specifically for the | ||
388 | purpose instead of wrapping such functions in scripts. | ||
389 | |||
390 | Speaking of inetd, netcat will function perfectly well *under* inetd as a TCP | ||
391 | connection redirector for inbound services, like a "plug-gw" without the | ||
392 | authentication step. This is very useful for doing stuff like redirecting | ||
393 | traffic through your firewall out to other places like web servers and mail | ||
394 | hubs, while posing no risk to the firewall machine itself. Put netcat behind | ||
395 | inetd and tcp_wrappers, perhaps thusly: | ||
396 | |||
397 | www stream tcp nowait nobody /etc/tcpd /bin/nc -w 3 realwww 80 | ||
398 | |||
399 | and you have a simple and effective "application relay" with access control | ||
400 | and logging. Note use of the wait time as a "safety" in case realwww isn't | ||
401 | reachable or the calling user aborts the connection -- otherwise the relay may | ||
402 | hang there forever. | ||
403 | |||
404 | You can use netcat to generate huge amounts of useless network data for | ||
405 | various performance testing. For example, doing | ||
406 | |||
407 | yes AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA | nc -v -v -l -p 2222 > /dev/null | ||
408 | |||
409 | on one side and then hitting it with | ||
410 | |||
411 | yes BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB | nc othermachine 2222 > /dev/null | ||
412 | |||
413 | from another host will saturate your wires with A's and B's. The "very | ||
414 | verbose" switch usage will tell you how many of each were sent and received | ||
415 | after you interrupt either side. Using UDP mode produces tremendously MORE | ||
416 | trash per unit time in the form of fragmented 8 Kbyte mobygrams -- enough to | ||
417 | stress-test kernels and network interfaces. Firing random binary data into | ||
418 | various network servers may help expose bugs in their input handling, which | ||
419 | nowadays is a popular thing to explore. A simple example data-generator is | ||
420 | given in data/data.c included in this package, along with a small collection | ||
421 | of canned input files to generate various packet contents. This program is | ||
422 | documented in its beginning comments, but of interest here is using "%r" to | ||
423 | generate random bytes at well-chosen points in a data stream. If you can | ||
424 | crash your daemon, you likely have a security problem. | ||
425 | |||
426 | The hex dump feature may be useful for debugging odd network protocols, | ||
427 | especially if you don't have any network monitoring equipment handy or aren't | ||
428 | root where you'd need to run "tcpdump" or something. Bind a listening netcat | ||
429 | to a local port, and have it run a script which in turn runs another netcat | ||
430 | to the real service and captures the hex dump to a log file. This sets up a | ||
431 | transparent relay between your local port and wherever the real service is. | ||
432 | Be sure that the script-run netcat does *not* use -v, or the extra info it | ||
433 | sends to standard error may confuse the protocol. Note also that you cannot | ||
434 | have the "listen/exec" netcat do the data capture, since once the connection | ||
435 | arrives it is no longer netcat that is running. | ||
436 | |||
437 | Binding to an arbitrary local port allows you to simulate things like r-service | ||
438 | clients, if you are root locally. For example, feeding "^@root^@joe^@pwd^@" | ||
439 | [where ^@ is a null, and root/joe could be any other local/remote username | ||
440 | pair] into a "rsh" or "rlogin" server, FROM your port 1023 for example, | ||
441 | duplicates what the server expects to receive. Thus, you can test for insecure | ||
442 | .rhosts files around your network without having to create new user accounts on | ||
443 | your client machine. The program data/rservice.c can aid this process by | ||
444 | constructing the "rcmd" protocol bytes. Doing this also prevents "rshd" from | ||
445 | trying to create that separate standard-error socket and still gives you an | ||
446 | input path, as opposed to the usual action of "rsh -n". Using netcat for | ||
447 | things like this can be really useful sometimes, because rsh and rlogin | ||
448 | generally want a host *name* as an argument and won't accept IP addresses. If | ||
449 | your client-end DNS is hosed, as may be true when you're trying to extract | ||
450 | backup sets on to a dumb client, "netcat -n" wins where normal rsh/rlogin is | ||
451 | useless. | ||
452 | |||
453 | If you are unsure that a remote syslogger is working, test it with netcat. | ||
454 | Make a UDP connection to port 514 and type in "<0>message", which should | ||
455 | correspond to "kern.emerg" and cause syslogd to scream into every file it has | ||
456 | open [and possibly all over users' terminals]. You can tame this down by | ||
457 | using a different number and use netcat inside routine scripts to send syslog | ||
458 | messages to places that aren't configured in syslog.conf. For example, | ||
459 | "echo '<38>message' | nc -w 1 -u loggerhost 514" should send to auth.notice | ||
460 | on loggerhost. The exact number may vary; check against your syslog.h first. | ||
461 | |||
462 | Netcat provides several ways for you to test your own packet filters. If you | ||
463 | bind to a port normally protected against outside access and make a connection | ||
464 | to somewhere outside your own network, the return traffic will be coming to | ||
465 | your chosen port from the "outside" and should be blocked. TCP may get through | ||
466 | if your filter passes all "ack syn", but it shouldn't be even doing that to low | ||
467 | ports on your network. Remember to test with UDP traffic as well! If your | ||
468 | filter passes at least outbound source-routed IP packets, bouncing a connection | ||
469 | back to yourself via some gateway outside your network will create "incoming" | ||
470 | traffic with your source address, which should get dropped by a correctly | ||
471 | configured anti-spoofing filter. This is a "non-test" if you're also dropping | ||
472 | source-routing, but it's good to be able to test for that too. Any packet | ||
473 | filter worth its salt will be blocking source-routed packets in both | ||
474 | directions, but you never know what interesting quirks you might turn up by | ||
475 | playing around with source ports and addresses and watching the wires with a | ||
476 | network monitor. | ||
477 | |||
478 | You can use netcat to protect your own workstation's X server against outside | ||
479 | access. X is stupid enough to listen for connections on "any" and never tell | ||
480 | you when new connections arrive, which is one reason it is so vulnerable. Once | ||
481 | you have all your various X windows up and running you can use netcat to bind | ||
482 | just to your ethernet address and listen to port 6000. Any new connections | ||
483 | from outside the machine will hit netcat instead your X server, and you get a | ||
484 | log of who's trying. You can either tell netcat to drop the connection, or | ||
485 | perhaps run another copy of itself to relay to your actual X server on | ||
486 | "localhost". This may not work for dedicated X terminals, but it may be | ||
487 | possible to authorize your X terminal only for its boot server, and run a relay | ||
488 | netcat over on the server that will in turn talk to your X terminal. Since | ||
489 | netcat only handles one listening connection per run, make sure that whatever | ||
490 | way you rig it causes another one to run and listen on 6000 soon afterward, or | ||
491 | your real X server will be reachable once again. A very minimal script just | ||
492 | to protect yourself could be | ||
493 | |||
494 | while true ; do | ||
495 | nc -v -l -s <your-addr> -p 6000 localhost 2 | ||
496 | done | ||
497 | |||
498 | which causes netcat to accept and then close any inbound connection to your | ||
499 | workstation's normal ethernet address, and another copy is immediately run by | ||
500 | the script. Send standard error to a file for a log of connection attempts. | ||
501 | If your system can't do the "specific bind" thing all is not lost; run your | ||
502 | X server on display ":1" or port 6001, and netcat can still function as a probe | ||
503 | alarm by listening on 6000. | ||
504 | |||
505 | Does your shell-account provider allow personal Web pages, but not CGI scripts? | ||
506 | You can have netcat listen on a particular port to execute a program or script | ||
507 | of your choosing, and then just point to the port with a URL in your homepage. | ||
508 | The listener could even exist on a completely different machine, avoiding the | ||
509 | potential ire of the homepage-host administrators. Since the script will get | ||
510 | the raw browser query as input it won't look like a typical CGI script, and | ||
511 | since it's running under your UID you need to write it carefully. You may want | ||
512 | to write a netcat-based script as a wrapper that reads a query and sets up | ||
513 | environment variables for a regular CGI script. The possibilities for using | ||
514 | netcat and scripts to handle Web stuff are almost endless. Again, see the | ||
515 | examples under scripts/. | ||
516 | |||
517 | Example uses -- the dark side | ||
518 | ============================= | ||
519 | |||
520 | Equal time is deserved here, since a versatile tool like this can be useful | ||
521 | to any Shade of Hat. I could use my Victorinox to either fix your car or | ||
522 | disassemble it, right? You can clearly use something like netcat to attack | ||
523 | or defend -- I don't try to govern anyone's social outlook, I just build tools. | ||
524 | Regardless of your intentions, you should still be aware of these threats to | ||
525 | your own systems. | ||
526 | |||
527 | The first obvious thing is scanning someone *else's* network for vulnerable | ||
528 | services. Files containing preconstructed data, be it exploratory or | ||
529 | exploitive, can be fed in as standard input, including command-line arguments | ||
530 | to netcat itself to keep "ps" ignorant of your doings. The more random the | ||
531 | scanning, the less likelihood of detection by humans, scan-detectors, or | ||
532 | dynamic filtering, and with -i you'll wait longer but avoid loading down the | ||
533 | target's network. Some examples for crafting various standard UDP probes are | ||
534 | given in data/*.d. | ||
535 | |||
536 | Some configurations of packet filters attempt to solve the FTP-data problem by | ||
537 | just allowing such connections from the outside. These come FROM port 20, TO | ||
538 | high TCP ports inside -- if you locally bind to port 20, you may find yourself | ||
539 | able to bypass filtering in some cases. Maybe not to low ports "inside", but | ||
540 | perhaps to TCP NFS servers, X servers, Prospero, ciscos that listen on 200x | ||
541 | and 400x... Similar bypassing may be possible for UDP [and maybe TCP too] if a | ||
542 | connection comes from port 53; a filter may assume it's a nameserver response. | ||
543 | |||
544 | Using -e in conjunction with binding to a specific address can enable "server | ||
545 | takeover" by getting in ahead of the real ones, whereupon you can snarf data | ||
546 | sent in and feed your own back out. At the very least you can log a hex dump | ||
547 | of someone else's session. If you are root, you can certainly use -s and -e to | ||
548 | run various hacked daemons without having to touch inetd.conf or the real | ||
549 | daemons themselves. You may not always have the root access to deal with low | ||
550 | ports, but what if you are on a machine that also happens to be an NFS server? | ||
551 | You might be able to collect some interesting things from port 2049, including | ||
552 | local file handles. There are several other servers that run on high ports | ||
553 | that are likely candidates for takeover, including many of the RPC services on | ||
554 | some platforms [yppasswdd, anyone?]. Kerberos tickets, X cookies, and IRC | ||
555 | traffic also come to mind. RADIUS-based terminal servers connect incoming | ||
556 | users to shell-account machines on a high port, usually 1642 or thereabouts. | ||
557 | SOCKS servers run on 1080. Do "netstat -a" and get creative. | ||
558 | |||
559 | There are some daemons that are well-written enough to bind separately to all | ||
560 | the local interfaces, possibly with an eye toward heading off this sort of | ||
561 | problem. Named from recent BIND releases, and NTP, are two that come to mind. | ||
562 | Netstat will show these listening on address.53 instead of *.53. You won't | ||
563 | be able to get in front of these on any of the real interface addresses, which | ||
564 | of course is especially interesting in the case of named, but these servers | ||
565 | sometimes forget about things like "alias" interface addresses or interfaces | ||
566 | that appear later on such as dynamic PPP links. There are some hacked web | ||
567 | servers and versions of "inetd" floating around that specifically bind as well, | ||
568 | based on a configuration file -- these generally *are* bound to alias addresses | ||
569 | to offer several different address-based services from one machine. | ||
570 | |||
571 | Using -e to start a remote backdoor shell is another obvious sort of thing, | ||
572 | easier than constructing a file for inetd to listen on "ingreslock" or | ||
573 | something, and you can access-control it against other people by specifying a | ||
574 | client host and port. Experience with this truly demonstrates how fragile the | ||
575 | barrier between being "logged in" or not really is, and is further expressed by | ||
576 | scripts/bsh. If you're already behind a firewall, it may be easier to make an | ||
577 | *outbound* connection and then run a shell; a small wrapper script can | ||
578 | periodically try connecting to a known place and port, you can later listen | ||
579 | there until the inbound connection arrives, and there's your shell. Running | ||
580 | a shell via UDP has several interesting features, although be aware that once | ||
581 | "connected", the UDP stub sockets tend to show up in "netstat" just like TCP | ||
582 | connections and may not be quite as subtle as you wanted. Packets may also be | ||
583 | lost, so use TCP if you need reliable connections. But since UDP is | ||
584 | connectionless, a hookup of this sort will stick around almost forever, even if | ||
585 | you ^C out of netcat or do a reboot on your side, and you only need to remember | ||
586 | the ports you used on both ends to reestablish. And outbound UDP-plus-exec | ||
587 | connection creates the connected socket and starts the program immediately. On | ||
588 | a listening UDP connection, the socket is created once a first packet is | ||
589 | received. In either case, though, such a "connection" has the interesting side | ||
590 | effect that only your client-side IP address and [chosen?] source port will | ||
591 | thereafter be able to talk to it. Instant access control! A non-local third | ||
592 | party would have to do ALL of the following to take over such a session: | ||
593 | |||
594 | forge UDP with your source address [trivial to do; see below] | ||
595 | guess the port numbers of BOTH ends, or sniff the wire for them | ||
596 | arrange to block ICMP or UDP return traffic between it and your real | ||
597 | source, so the session doesn't die with a network write error. | ||
598 | |||
599 | The companion program data/rservice.c is helpful in scripting up any sort of | ||
600 | r-service username or password guessing attack. The arguments to "rservice" | ||
601 | are simply the strings that get null-terminated and passed over an "rcmd"-style | ||
602 | connection, with the assumption that the client does not need a separate | ||
603 | standard-error port. Brute-force password banging is best done via "rexec" if | ||
604 | it is available since it is less likely to log failed attempts. Thus, doing | ||
605 | "rservice joe joespass pwd | nc target exec" should return joe's home dir if | ||
606 | the password is right, or "Permission denied." Plug in a dictionary and go to | ||
607 | town. If you're attacking rsh/rlogin, remember to be root and bind to a port | ||
608 | between 512 and 1023 on your end, and pipe in "rservice joe joe pwd" and such. | ||
609 | |||
610 | Netcat can prevent inadvertently sending extra information over a telnet | ||
611 | connection. Use "nc -t" in place of telnet, and daemons that try to ask for | ||
612 | things like USER and TERM environment variables will get no useful answers, as | ||
613 | they otherwise would from a more recent telnet program. Some telnetds actually | ||
614 | try to collect this stuff and then plug the USER variable into "login" so that | ||
615 | the caller is then just asked for a password! This mechanism could cause a | ||
616 | login attempt as YOUR real username to be logged over there if you use a | ||
617 | Borman-based telnet instead of "nc -t". | ||
618 | |||
619 | Got an unused network interface configured in your kernel [e.g. SLIP], or | ||
620 | support for alias addresses? Ifconfig one to be any address you like, and bind | ||
621 | to it with -s to enable all sorts of shenanigans with bogus source addresses. | ||
622 | The interface probably has to be UP before this works; some SLIP versions | ||
623 | need a far-end address before this is true. Hammering on UDP services is then | ||
624 | a no-brainer. What you can do to an unfiltered syslog daemon should be fairly | ||
625 | obvious; trimming the conf file can help protect against it. Many routers out | ||
626 | there still blindly believe what they receive via RIP and other routing | ||
627 | protocols. Although most UDP echo and chargen servers check if an incoming | ||
628 | packet was sent from *another* "internal" UDP server, there are many that still | ||
629 | do not, any two of which [or many, for that matter] could keep each other | ||
630 | entertained for hours at the expense of bandwidth. And you can always make | ||
631 | someone wonder why she's being probed by nsa.gov. | ||
632 | |||
633 | Your TCP spoofing possibilities are mostly limited to destinations you can | ||
634 | source-route to while locally bound to your phony address. Many sites block | ||
635 | source-routed packets these days for precisely this reason. If your kernel | ||
636 | does oddball things when sending source-routed packets, try moving the pointer | ||
637 | around with -G. You may also have to fiddle with the routing on your own | ||
638 | machine before you start receiving packets back. Warning: some machines still | ||
639 | send out traffic using the source address of the outbound interface, regardless | ||
640 | of your binding, especially in the case of localhost. Check first. If you can | ||
641 | open a connection but then get no data back from it, the target host is | ||
642 | probably killing the IP options on its end [this is an option inside TCP | ||
643 | wrappers and several other packages], which happens after the 3-way handshake | ||
644 | is completed. If you send some data and observe the "send-q" side of "netstat" | ||
645 | for that connection increasing but never getting sent, that's another symptom. | ||
646 | Beware: if Sendmail 8.7.x detects a source-routed SMTP connection, it extracts | ||
647 | the hop list and sticks it in the Received: header! | ||
648 | |||
649 | SYN bombing [sometimes called "hosing"] can disable many TCP servers, and if | ||
650 | you hit one often enough, you can keep it unreachable for days. As is true of | ||
651 | many other denial-of-service attacks, there is currently no defense against it | ||
652 | except maybe at the human level. Making kernel SOMAXCONN considerably larger | ||
653 | than the default and the half-open timeout smaller can help, and indeed some | ||
654 | people running large high-performance web servers have *had* to do that just to | ||
655 | handle normal traffic. Taking out mailers and web servers is sociopathic, but | ||
656 | on the other hand it is sometimes useful to be able to, say, disable a site's | ||
657 | identd daemon for a few minutes. If someone realizes what is going on, | ||
658 | backtracing will still be difficult since the packets have a phony source | ||
659 | address, but calls to enough ISP NOCs might eventually pinpoint the source. | ||
660 | It is also trivial for a clueful ISP to watch for or even block outgoing | ||
661 | packets with obviously fake source addresses, but as we know many of them are | ||
662 | not clueful or willing to get involved in such hassles. Besides, outbound | ||
663 | packets with an [otherwise unreachable] source address in one of their net | ||
664 | blocks would look fairly legitimate. | ||
665 | |||
666 | Notes | ||
667 | ===== | ||
668 | |||
669 | A discussion of various caveats, subtleties, and the design of the innards. | ||
670 | |||
671 | As of version 1.07 you can construct a single file containing command arguments | ||
672 | and then some data to transfer. Netcat is now smart enough to pick out the | ||
673 | first line and build the argument list, and send any remaining data across the | ||
674 | net to one or multiple ports. The first release of netcat had trouble with | ||
675 | this -- it called fgets() for the command line argument, which behind the | ||
676 | scenes does a large read() from standard input, perhaps 4096 bytes or so, and | ||
677 | feeds that out to the fgets() library routine. By the time netcat 1.00 started | ||
678 | directly read()ing stdin for more data, 4096 bytes of it were gone. It now | ||
679 | uses raw read() everywhere and does the right thing whether reading from files, | ||
680 | pipes, or ttys. If you use this for multiple-port connections, the single | ||
681 | block of data will now be a maximum of 8K minus the first line. Improvements | ||
682 | have been made to the logic in sending the saved chunk to each new port. Note | ||
683 | that any command-line arguments hidden using this mechanism could still be | ||
684 | extracted from a core dump. | ||
685 | |||
686 | When netcat receives an inbound UDP connection, it creates a "connected socket" | ||
687 | back to the source of the connection so that it can also send out data using | ||
688 | normal write(). Using this mechanism instead of recvfrom/sendto has several | ||
689 | advantages -- the read/write select loop is simplified, and ICMP errors can in | ||
690 | effect be received by non-root users. However, it has the subtle side effect | ||
691 | that if further UDP packets arrive from the caller but from different source | ||
692 | ports, the listener will not receive them. UDP listen mode on a multihomed | ||
693 | machine may have similar quirks unless you specifically bind to one of its | ||
694 | addresses. It is not clear that kernel support for UDP connected sockets | ||
695 | and/or my understanding of it is entirely complete here, so experiment... | ||
696 | |||
697 | You should be aware of some subtleties concerning UDP scanning. If -z is on, | ||
698 | netcat attempts to send a single null byte to the target port, twice, with a | ||
699 | small time in between. You can either use the -w timeout, or netcat will try | ||
700 | to make a "sideline" TCP connection to the target to introduce a small time | ||
701 | delay equal to the round-trip time between you and the target. Note that if | ||
702 | you have a -w timeout and -i timeout set, BOTH take effect and you wait twice | ||
703 | as long. The TCP connection is to a normally refused port to minimize traffic, | ||
704 | but if you notice a UDP fast-scan taking somewhat longer than it should, it | ||
705 | could be that the target is actually listening on the TCP port. Either way, | ||
706 | any ICMP port-unreachable messages from the target should have arrived in the | ||
707 | meantime. The second single-byte UDP probe is then sent. Under BSD kernels, | ||
708 | the ICMP error is delivered to the "connected socket" and the second write | ||
709 | returns an error, which tells netcat that there is NOT a UDP service there. | ||
710 | While Linux seems to be a fortunate exception, under many SYSV derived kernels | ||
711 | the ICMP is not delivered, and netcat starts reporting that *all* the ports are | ||
712 | "open" -- clearly wrong. [Some systems may not even *have* the "udp connected | ||
713 | socket" concept, and netcat in its current form will not work for UDP at all.] | ||
714 | If -z is specified and only one UDP port is probed, netcat's exit status | ||
715 | reflects whether the connection was "open" or "refused" as with TCP. | ||
716 | |||
717 | It may also be that UDP packets are being blocked by filters with no ICMP error | ||
718 | returns, in which case everything will time out and return "open". This all | ||
719 | sounds backwards, but that's how UDP works. If you're not sure, try "echo | ||
720 | w00gumz | nc -u -w 2 target 7" to see if you can reach its UDP echo port at | ||
721 | all. You should have no trouble using a BSD-flavor system to scan for UDP | ||
722 | around your own network, although flooding a target with the high activity that | ||
723 | -z generates will cause it to occasionally drop packets and indicate false | ||
724 | "opens". A more "correct" way to do this is collect and analyze the ICMP | ||
725 | errors, as does SATAN's "udp_scan" backend, but then again there's no guarantee | ||
726 | that the ICMP gets back to you either. Udp_scan also does the zero-byte | ||
727 | probes but is excruciatingly careful to calculate its own round-trip timing | ||
728 | average and dynamically set its own response timeouts along with decoding any | ||
729 | ICMP received. Netcat uses a much sleazier method which is nonetheless quite | ||
730 | effective. Cisco routers are known to have a "dead time" in between ICMP | ||
731 | responses about unreachable UDP ports, so a fast scan of a cisco will show | ||
732 | almost everything "open". If you are looking for a specific UDP service, you | ||
733 | can construct a file containing the right bytes to trigger a response from the | ||
734 | other end and send that as standard input. Netcat will read up to 8K of the | ||
735 | file and send the same data to every UDP port given. Note that you must use a | ||
736 | timeout in this case [as would any other UDP client application] since the | ||
737 | two-write probe only happens if -z is specified. | ||
738 | |||
739 | Many telnet servers insist on a specific set of option negotiations before | ||
740 | presenting a login banner. On a raw connection you will see this as small | ||
741 | amount of binary gook. My attempts to create fixed input bytes to make a | ||
742 | telnetd happy worked some places but failed against newer BSD-flavor ones, | ||
743 | possibly due to timing problems, but there are a couple of much better | ||
744 | workarounds. First, compile with -DTELNET and use -t if you just want to get | ||
745 | past the option negotiation and talk to something on a telnet port. You will | ||
746 | still see the binary gook -- in fact you'll see a lot more of it as the options | ||
747 | are responded to behind the scenes. The telnet responder does NOT update the | ||
748 | total byte count, or show up in the hex dump -- it just responds negatively to | ||
749 | any options read from the incoming data stream. If you want to use a normal | ||
750 | full-blown telnet to get to something but also want some of netcat's features | ||
751 | involved like settable ports or timeouts, construct a tiny "foo" script: | ||
752 | |||
753 | #! /bin/sh | ||
754 | exec nc -otheroptions targethost 23 | ||
755 | |||
756 | and then do | ||
757 | |||
758 | nc -l -p someport -e foo localhost & | ||
759 | telnet localhost someport | ||
760 | |||
761 | and your telnet should connect transparently through the exec'ed netcat to | ||
762 | the target, using whatever options you supplied in the "foo" script. Don't | ||
763 | use -t inside the script, or you'll wind up sending *two* option responses. | ||
764 | |||
765 | I've observed inconsistent behavior under some Linuxes [perhaps just older | ||
766 | ones?] when binding in listen mode. Sometimes netcat binds only to "localhost" | ||
767 | if invoked with no address or port arguments, and sometimes it is unable to | ||
768 | bind to a specific address for listening if something else is already listening | ||
769 | on "any". The former problem can be worked around by specifying "-s 0.0.0.0", | ||
770 | which will do the right thing despite netcat claiming that it's listening on | ||
771 | [127.0.0.1]. This is a known problem -- for example, there's a mention of it | ||
772 | in the makefile for SOCKS. On the flip side, binding to localhost and sending | ||
773 | packets to some other machine doesn't work as you'd expect -- they go out with | ||
774 | the source address of the sending interface instead. The Linux kernel contains | ||
775 | a specific check to ensure that packets from 127.0.0.1 are never sent to the | ||
776 | wire; other kernels may contain similar code. Linux, of course, *still* | ||
777 | doesn't support source-routing, but they claim that it and many other network | ||
778 | improvements are at least breathing hard. | ||
779 | |||
780 | There are several possible errors associated with making TCP connections, but | ||
781 | to specifically see anything other than "refused", one must wait the full | ||
782 | kernel-defined timeout for a connection to fail. Netcat's mechanism of | ||
783 | wrapping an alarm timer around the connect prevents the *real* network error | ||
784 | from being returned -- "errno" at that point indicates "interrupted system | ||
785 | call" since the connect attempt was interrupted. Some old 4.3 BSD kernels | ||
786 | would actually return things like "host unreachable" immediately if that was | ||
787 | the case, but most newer kernels seem to wait the full timeout and *then* pass | ||
788 | back the real error. Go figure. In this case, I'd argue that the old way was | ||
789 | better, despite those same kernels generally being the ones that tear down | ||
790 | *established* TCP connections when ICMP-bombed. | ||
791 | |||
792 | Incoming socket options are passed to applications by the kernel in the | ||
793 | kernel's own internal format. The socket-options structure for source-routing | ||
794 | contains the "first-hop" IP address first, followed by the rest of the real | ||
795 | options list. The kernel uses this as is when sending reply packets -- the | ||
796 | structure is therefore designed to be more useful to the kernel than to humans, | ||
797 | but the hex dump of it that netcat produces is still useful to have. | ||
798 | |||
799 | Kernels treat source-routing options somewhat oddly, but it sort of makes sense | ||
800 | once one understands what's going on internally. The options list of addresses | ||
801 | must contain hop1, hop2, ..., destination. When a source-routed packet is sent | ||
802 | by the kernel [at least BSD], the actual destination address becomes irrelevant | ||
803 | because it is replaced with "hop1", "hop1" is removed from the options list, | ||
804 | and all the other addresses in the list are shifted up to fill the hole. Thus | ||
805 | the outbound packet is sent from your chosen source address to the first | ||
806 | *gateway*, and the options list now contains hop2, ..., destination. During | ||
807 | all this address shuffling, the kernel does NOT change the pointer value, which | ||
808 | is why it is useful to be able to set the pointer yourself -- you can construct | ||
809 | some really bizarre return paths, and send your traffic fairly directly to the | ||
810 | target but around some larger loop on the way back. Some Sun kernels seem to | ||
811 | never flip the source-route around if it contains less than three hops, never | ||
812 | reset the pointer anyway, and tries to send the packet [with options containing | ||
813 | a "completed" source route!!] directly back to the source. This is way broken, | ||
814 | of course. [Maybe ipforwarding has to be on? I haven't had an opportunity to | ||
815 | beat on it thoroughly yet.] | ||
816 | |||
817 | "Credits" section: The original idea for netcat fell out of a long-standing | ||
818 | desire and fruitless search for a tool resembling it and having the same | ||
819 | features. After reading some other network code and realizing just how many | ||
820 | cool things about sockets could be controlled by the calling user, I started | ||
821 | on the basics and the rest fell together pretty quickly. Some port-scanning | ||
822 | ideas were taken from Venema/Farmer's SATAN tool kit, and Pluvius' "pscan" | ||
823 | utility. Healthy amounts of BSD kernel source were perused in an attempt to | ||
824 | dope out socket options and source-route handling; additional help was obtained | ||
825 | from Dave Borman's telnet sources. The select loop is loosely based on fairly | ||
826 | well-known code from "rsh" and Richard Stevens' "sock" program [which itself is | ||
827 | sort of a "netcat" with more obscure features], with some more paranoid | ||
828 | sanity-checking thrown in to guard against the distinct likelihood that there | ||
829 | are subtleties about such things I still don't understand. I found the | ||
830 | argument-hiding method cleanly implemented in Barrett's "deslogin"; reading the | ||
831 | line as input allows greater versatility and is much less prone to cause | ||
832 | bizarre problems than the more common trick of overwriting the argv array. | ||
833 | After the first release, several people contributed portability fixes; they are | ||
834 | credited in generic.h and the Makefile. Lauren Burka inspired the ascii art | ||
835 | for this revised document. Dean Gaudet at Wired supplied a precursor to | ||
836 | the hex-dump code, and mudge@l0pht.com originally experimented with and | ||
837 | supplied code for the telnet-options responder. Outbound "-e <prog>" resulted | ||
838 | from a need to quietly bypass a firewall installation. Other suggestions and | ||
839 | patches have rolled in for which I am always grateful, but there are only 26 | ||
840 | hours per day and a discussion of feature creep near the end of this document. | ||
841 | |||
842 | Netcat was written with the Russian railroad in mind -- conservatively built | ||
843 | and solid, but it *will* get you there. While the coding style is fairly | ||
844 | "tight", I have attempted to present it cleanly [keeping *my* lines under 80 | ||
845 | characters, dammit] and put in plenty of comments as to why certain things | ||
846 | are done. Items I know to be questionable are clearly marked with "XXX". | ||
847 | Source code was made to be modified, but determining where to start is | ||
848 | difficult with some of the tangles of spaghetti code that are out there. | ||
849 | Here are some of the major points I feel are worth mentioning about netcat's | ||
850 | internal design, whether or not you agree with my approach. | ||
851 | |||
852 | Except for generic.h, which changes to adapt more platforms, netcat is a single | ||
853 | source file. This has the distinct advantage of only having to include headers | ||
854 | once and not having to re-declare all my functions in a billion different | ||
855 | places. I have attempted to contain all the gross who's-got-what-.h-file | ||
856 | things in one small dumping ground. Functions are placed "dependencies-first", | ||
857 | such that when the compiler runs into the calls later, it already knows the | ||
858 | type and arguments and won't complain. No function prototyping -- not even the | ||
859 | __P(()) crock -- is used, since it is more portable and a file of this size is | ||
860 | easy enough to check manually. Each function has a standard-format comment | ||
861 | ahead of it, which is easily found using the regexp " :$". I freely use gotos. | ||
862 | Loops and if-clauses are made as small and non-nested as possible, and the ends | ||
863 | of same *marked* for clarity [I wish everyone would do this!!]. | ||
864 | |||
865 | Large structures and buffers are all malloc()ed up on the fly, slightly larger | ||
866 | than the size asked for and zeroed out. This reduces the chances of damage | ||
867 | from those "end of the buffer" fencepost errors or runaway pointers escaping | ||
868 | off the end. These things are permanent per run, so nothing needs to be freed | ||
869 | until the program exits. | ||
870 | |||
871 | File descriptor zero is always expected to be standard input, even if it is | ||
872 | closed. If a new network descriptor winds up being zero, a different one is | ||
873 | asked for which will be nonzero, and fd zero is simply left kicking around | ||
874 | for the rest of the run. Why? Because everything else assumes that stdin is | ||
875 | always zero and "netfd" is always positive. This may seem silly, but it was a | ||
876 | lot easier to code. The new fd is obtained directly as a new socket, because | ||
877 | trying to simply dup() a new fd broke subsequent socket-style use of the new fd | ||
878 | under Solaris' stupid streams handling in the socket library. | ||
879 | |||
880 | The catch-all message and error handlers are implemented with an ample list of | ||
881 | phoney arguments to get around various problems with varargs. Varargs seems | ||
882 | like deliberate obfuscation in the first place, and using it would also | ||
883 | require use of vfprintf() which not all platforms support. The trailing | ||
884 | sleep in bail() is to allow output to flush, which is sometimes needed if | ||
885 | netcat is already on the other end of a network connection. | ||
886 | |||
887 | The reader may notice that the section that does DNS lookups seems much | ||
888 | gnarlier and more confusing than other parts. This is NOT MY FAULT. The | ||
889 | sockaddr and hostent abstractions are an abortion that forces the coder to | ||
890 | deal with it. Then again, a lot of BSD kernel code looks like similar | ||
891 | struct-pointer hell. I try to straighten it out somewhat by defining my own | ||
892 | HINF structure, containing names, ascii-format IP addresses, and binary IP | ||
893 | addresses. I fill this structure exactly once per host argument, and squirrel | ||
894 | everything safely away and handy for whatever wants to reference it later. | ||
895 | |||
896 | Where many other network apps use the FIONBIO ioctl to set non-blocking I/O | ||
897 | on network sockets, netcat uses straightforward blocking I/O everywhere. | ||
898 | This makes everything very lock-step, relying on the network and filesystem | ||
899 | layers to feed in data when needed. Data read in is completely written out | ||
900 | before any more is fetched. This may not be quite the right thing to do under | ||
901 | some OSes that don't do timed select() right, but this remains to be seen. | ||
902 | |||
903 | The hexdump routine is written to be as fast as possible, which is why it does | ||
904 | so much work itself instead of just sprintf()ing everything together. Each | ||
905 | dump line is built into a single buffer and atomically written out using the | ||
906 | lowest level I/O calls. Further improvements could undoubtedly be made by | ||
907 | using writev() and eliminating all sprintf()s, but it seems to fly right along | ||
908 | as is. If both exec-a-prog mode and a hexdump file is asked for, the hexdump | ||
909 | flag is deliberately turned off to avoid creating random zero-length files. | ||
910 | Files are opened in "truncate" mode; if you want "append" mode instead, change | ||
911 | the open flags in main(). | ||
912 | |||
913 | main() may look a bit hairy, but that's only because it has to go down the | ||
914 | argv list and handle multiple ports, random mode, and exit status. Efforts | ||
915 | have been made to place a minimum of code inside the getopt() loop. Any real | ||
916 | work is sent off to functions in what is hopefully a straightforward way. | ||
917 | |||
918 | Obligatory vendor-bash: If "nc" had become a standard utility years ago, | ||
919 | the commercial vendors would have likely packaged it setuid root and with | ||
920 | -DGAPING_SECURITY_HOLE turned on but not documented. It is hoped that netcat | ||
921 | will aid people in finding and fixing the no-brainer holes of this sort that | ||
922 | keep appearing, by allowing easier experimentation with the "bare metal" of | ||
923 | the network layer. | ||
924 | |||
925 | It could be argued that netcat already has too many features. I have tried | ||
926 | to avoid "feature creep" by limiting netcat's base functionality only to those | ||
927 | things which are truly relevant to making network connections and the everyday | ||
928 | associated DNS lossage we're used to. Option switches already have slightly | ||
929 | overloaded functionality. Random port mode is sort of pushing it. The | ||
930 | hex-dump feature went in later because it *is* genuinely useful. The | ||
931 | telnet-responder code *almost* verges on the gratuitous, especially since it | ||
932 | mucks with the data stream, and is left as an optional piece. Many people have | ||
933 | asked for example "how 'bout adding encryption?" and my response is that such | ||
934 | things should be separate entities that could pipe their data *through* netcat | ||
935 | instead of having their own networking code. I am therefore not completely | ||
936 | enthusiastic about adding any more features to this thing, although you are | ||
937 | still free to send along any mods you think are useful. | ||
938 | |||
939 | Nonetheless, at this point I think of netcat as my tcp/ip swiss army knife, | ||
940 | and the numerous companion programs and scripts to go with it as duct tape. | ||
941 | Duct tape of course has a light side and a dark side and binds the universe | ||
942 | together, and if I wrap enough of it around what I'm trying to accomplish, | ||
943 | it *will* work. Alternatively, if netcat is a large hammer, there are many | ||
944 | network protocols that are increasingly looking like nails by now... | ||
945 | |||
946 | _H* 960320 v1.10 RELEASE -- happy spring! | ||
diff --git a/src/usr.bin/nc/netcat.blurb b/src/usr.bin/nc/netcat.blurb deleted file mode 100644 index 2c540ad9dc..0000000000 --- a/src/usr.bin/nc/netcat.blurb +++ /dev/null | |||
@@ -1,61 +0,0 @@ | |||
1 | Netcat 1.10 is an updated release of Netcat, a simple Unix utility which reads | ||
2 | and writes data across network connections using TCP or UDP protocol. It is | ||
3 | designed to be a reliable "back-end" tool that can be used directly or easily | ||
4 | driven by other programs and scripts. At the same time it is a feature-rich | ||
5 | network debugging and exploration tool, since it can create almost any kind of | ||
6 | connection you would need and has several interesting built-in capabilities. | ||
7 | |||
8 | Some of netcat's major features are: | ||
9 | |||
10 | Outbound or inbound connections, TCP or UDP, to or from any ports | ||
11 | Full DNS forward/reverse checking, with appropriate warnings | ||
12 | Ability to use any local source port | ||
13 | Ability to use any locally-configured network source address | ||
14 | Built-in port-scanning capabilities, with randomizer | ||
15 | Built-in loose source-routing capability | ||
16 | Can read command line arguments from standard input | ||
17 | Slow-send mode, one line every N seconds | ||
18 | Hex dump of transmitted and received data | ||
19 | Optional ability to let another program service established connections | ||
20 | Optional telnet-options responder | ||
21 | |||
22 | A very short list of potential uses: | ||
23 | |||
24 | Script backends | ||
25 | Scanning ports and inventorying services, automated probes | ||
26 | Backup handlers | ||
27 | File transfers | ||
28 | Server testing, simulation, debugging, and hijacking | ||
29 | Firewall testing | ||
30 | Proxy gatewaying | ||
31 | Network performance testing | ||
32 | Address spoofing tests | ||
33 | Protecting X servers | ||
34 | 1001 other uses you'll likely come up with | ||
35 | |||
36 | Changes between the 1.00 release and this release: | ||
37 | |||
38 | Better portability -- updated generic.h and Makefile [thanx folks!] | ||
39 | Indication of local-end interface address on inbound connections | ||
40 | That's *Dave* Borman's telnet, not Paul Borman... | ||
41 | Better indication of DNS errors | ||
42 | Total byte counts printed if -v -v is used | ||
43 | A bunch of front-end driver companion programs and scripts | ||
44 | Better handling of stdin arguments-plus-data | ||
45 | Hex-dump feature | ||
46 | Telnet responder | ||
47 | Program exec works inbound or outbound now | ||
48 | |||
49 | Netcat and the associated package is a product of Avian Research, and is freely | ||
50 | available in full source form with no restrictions save an obligation to give | ||
51 | credit where due. Get it via anonymous FTP at avian.org:/src/hacks/nc110.tgz | ||
52 | which is a gzipped tar file and not to be confused with its version 1.00 | ||
53 | precursor, nc100.tgz. Other distribution formats can be accomodated upon | ||
54 | request. Netcat is also mirrored at the following [faster] sites: | ||
55 | |||
56 | zippy.telcom.arizona.edu:/pub/mirrors/avian.org/hacks/nc110.tgz | ||
57 | ftp.sterling.com:/mirrors/avian.org/src/hacks/nc110.tgz | ||
58 | coast.cs.purdue.edu:/pub/tools/unix/netcat/nc110.tgz | ||
59 | ftp.rge.com:/pub/security/coast/mirrors/avian.org/netcat/nc110.tgz | ||
60 | |||
61 | _H* 960320 | ||