Netcat on mac

Question

Netcat on mac

I have been teaching myself terminal over the past year but recently ran into the netcat command and encountered an error. Sadly, Apple felt the need to remove the -e (execute) switch from this particular command and although I have mastered all the other uses I have been looking for a place to download the full BSD free version (for compatibility). I have put a couple of hours reading through various websites and have found nothing. Any help on where to find this software would be very appreciated. Also, on a random note, what is BSD's version of "apt-get".

Thanks for any help

MacBook Air

Posted on Nov 25, 2015 9:37 AM

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Answer 1

BobHarris

Level 9

57,381 points

Nov 25, 2015 3:22 PM in response to chevydogincode

Besides the homebrew open source package installer, there is fink and MacPorts, however, homebrew is the current flavor that seems to be referenced more than the others.

There is also GNU netcat (gnetcat), which does have the -e option. You can get that from the above package installers, or you can download the sources and build it yourself

<http://netcat.sourceforge.net/>

In fact, there is a very good chance that whatever you are reading is based on GNU netcat, as that is more likely to be installed on a Linux system.

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Answer 2

MrHoffman

Level 10

152,659 points

Nov 25, 2015 12:40 PM in response to chevydogincode

More likely that there are just the usual differences between Unix implementations and versions, rather than removing a specific switch.

There are several different add-on package installers that can be used with OS X, with homebrew being the local choice.

Yes, homebrew does have a recipe for netcat available.

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