Commands and Utilities

NETCAT

Universal utility for network connection in Unix and similar operating systems


Command
Explanation

nc host port

Connects to the host on the specified port

nc -l -p port

Starts nc in listener mode on the specified port

nc -z host {port-range}

Basic port scanner

nc -v host port

Get banner

nc -l -p local_port -c 'nc remote_host remote_port'

Configures a basic proxy where it listens for a specific local port and forwards it to a remote server

nc -l -p 1234 -e /bin/bash

Simple backdoor


IP

Linux command to manage ІР. Older brother of ifconfig


Command
Explanation

ip addr

Shows all addresses

ip -4 addr

Shows IPv4 address

ip -6 addr

Shows IPv6 address


NETSTAT

The netstat command lets you discover which sockets are connected and which sockets are listening. Meaning, it tells you which ports are in use and which processes are using them. It can show you routing tables and statistics about your network interfaces and multicast connections.This command is liable to produce a long listing, so we pipe it into less.


Syntax
Explanation

netstat -at | less

Looks for all tcp sockets

netstat -au | less

Looks for all udp sockets

netstat -l | less

Looks for all listening sockets. We could combine with -t to make netstat -lt or -lu to search for listening tcp or udp sockets

netstat -p -at

Shows all TCP sockets with PID

sudo netstat -anp | grep ":22"

Finds 22 port target string

sudo netstat -i

Show network interfaces

sudo netstat -r

Display kernel routing table


TRACEROUTE

For understanding traceroute you should know what is TCP/IP suite of protocols, especially what is UDP or User Datagram Protocol. There are a lot of headers but we need TTL (Time to Live). It is a count how much routers, gateways could possibly pass this packet, each router decrements 1. When TTL reaches 0, router sends ICMP "Time Exceeded" message back to the origin of the packet. So traceroute first sends packet with ttl 1, then 2, then 3 etc. until destination is reached or maximum number of hops (30 by default) is tested.

Syntax
Explanation

traceroute -l IP

Use ICMP Echo requests instead of UDP packets

traceroute -n IP

Do not resolve hostnames

traceroute -q IP

Set the number of queries per hop

traceroute -m IP

Set the maximum hop count


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