Creating a Simple Chat with netcat in Linux

Firstly, We should know that what is netcat, which is also known as TCP/IP swiss army knife a feature-rich network utility. netcat can do port scanning, transfer files, create a listener, or stream media, and many more. The netcat utility program supports a wide range of commands to manage networks and monitor the flow of traffic data between systems.

Install netcat in Linux:

sudo apt-get install netcat

Compile Netcat From Source:

1. Download Netcat from an official source

2. To decompress it run the following command,

gunzip netcat-0.7.1.tar.gz

Here, “netcat-0.7.1.tar.gz” is the name of the file.

3. untar the file.

tar -xf netcat-0.7.1.tar

4. Change the directory.

cd netcat-0.7.1 / 

5. by using the command configure the source code.

./configure

6. Compile the program by using.

make

7. Now install it.

make install

Creating a Simple Chat

We will follow these steps for configuring a chat.

Steps 1: To create a simple chat you need two devices, d1 and d2.

Step 2: Open a terminal in Linux and install Netcat on both devices.

Step 3: type $ifconfig in d1 and note down your localhost IP address, ifconfig is used to get our device’s IP address.

Step 4: Now in d1 run command $nc -nvlp 1234 where “1234” is port number, d1 will now act as a listener.

Where:

• -n: nodns, Do not resolve hostname vis DNS
• -v: verbose, set verbosity level
• -l: listener, binds and listen for incoming connection
• -p: source-port port, Specify source port to use

Step 5: in d2 type $nc <localhost IP> 1234 and hit enter.

Step 6: Simple chat is now created.