hello LQ'ers,

recently, ive become interested in leraning how to use netcat, mainly for squirts and giggles, and what ive read, i udnerstand you that you need both sides of the "converstaion" to be using nc, the server nc -l 1234, and on the one connecting to it, nc <ipaddr> 1234. i even disabled my firewall, and the problem im having is, supposedly, when i type something on one side, its supposed to show up on the other, correct? like i can run commands, or just pipe text to the otherside like a very basic chat program, correct? well, so far, im getting nothing on either sides, and then i closed it on one end, then the text popped up, and gave me errors about trying to run the text i sent. then i tried to reconenct, and it said that the connection was refused. is there something im not diong right, or should i look for soemthing? thanks for any help.

Use tcpdump or tcpflow to debug this issue. If you are sitting in front of a desktop box, you might try Wireshark. You should see the three-way-handshake complete. If this is not the case, might have limited connectivity.

lol, thanks for the help, i was wiresharking it, and i tried the command, and i saw 3 packets pop up. im not sure what exactly im looking to read. i saved the sniff so i can look in it later.

That could be your handshake. Take a good dive into the topic, there is plenty to read out there.