Netcat for webservice status

system1 · 02-25-2013, 03:22 AM

Hi, I read somewhere that netcat is like a "swiss army knife". Therefore, I want to check the status of a web service (I have the url), how can I do that using netcat? I know how it can be done through curl though, but I would really prefer to use netcat for the task.

Thanks in advance

acid_kewpie · 02-25-2013, 03:34 AM

check item 6 here http://www.howtoforge.com/useful-uses-of-netcat

system1 · 02-25-2013, 03:59 AM

Thanks, but how do i use it with a url like http://192.168.0.1:8080/someService?wsdl with a status message(s) being returned and not an interactive prompt?

acid_kewpie · 02-25-2013, 04:27 AM

interactive what now? An HTTP request is an HTTP request no matter what the server app is. There's no different. It's just a POST or a GET

unSpawn · 02-25-2013, 07:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by system1

Thanks, but how do i use it with a url like http://192.168.0.1:8080/someService?wsdl with a status message(s) being returned and not an interactive prompt?

You should probably quote the URI "http://192.168.0.1:8080/someService?wsdl" to keep the question mark from being interpreted by the shell if that's what you mean?
*BTW since this seems to be about WSDL why not use something like http://sourceforge.net/projects/wsdlpull/ instead? Then you can also check the actual content for errors and not just it being alive or not.

system1 · 03-04-2013, 08:08 AM

@unPawn, I have tried various combinations using qoutes as suggested, but the OS keeps displaying the nc syntax indicating that the syntax is not correct. Also, I am not allowed to install or copy other files like the wsdlpull you suggested. Further help is still needed and will be appreciated.

unSpawn · 03-05-2013, 01:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by system1

@unPawn,

Please write my handle correctly, TIA.

Quote:

Originally Posted by system1

I have tried various combinations using qoutes as suggested, but the OS keeps displaying the nc syntax indicating that the syntax is not correct.

'man nc' says it's 'nc address [space] port' plus you'll prolly have to do something like 'echo -en 'GET HTTP/1.1 /someService?wsdl\n\n|nc address port'.