What is “netcat” Package?

Netcat is a featured networking utility which reads and writes data across network connections, using the TCP/IP protocol.
It is designed to be a reliable “back-end” tool that can be used directly or easily driven by other programs and scripts. At the same time, it is a feature-rich network debugging and exploration tool, since it can create almost any kind of connection you would need and has several interesting built-in capabilities.
For more details: https://netcat.sourceforge.io/

Installation

• Open Terminal by pressing command+space then type terminal and hit Enter key.
• Install homebrew first.

  ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)" < /dev/null 2> /dev/null

• Install netcat.

  brew install netcat

Now, use netcat!

Features of netcat:

• Outbound and inbound connections, TCP or UDP, to or from any ports.
• Featured tunneling mode which allows also special tunneling such as UDP to TCP, with the possibility of specifying all network parameters (source port/interface, listening port/interface, and the remote host allowed to connect to the tunnel.
• Built-in port-scanning capabilities, with randomizer.
• Advanced usage options, such as buffered send-mode (one line every N seconds), and hexdump (to stderr or to a specified file) of trasmitted and received data.
• Optional RFC854 telnet codes parser and responder.