Description:

The nc package contains Netcat (the program is now netcat), a simple
utility for reading and writing data across network connections, using
the TCP or UDP protocols. Netcat is intended to be a reliable back-end
tool which can be used directly or easily driven by other programs and
scripts. Netcat is also a feature-rich network debugging and exploration
tool, since it can create many different connections and has many
built-in capabilities.

You may want to install the netcat package if you are administering a
network and you'd like to use its debugging and network exploration
capabilities.

netcat has been compiled with -DGAPING_SECURITY_HOLE turned on. I do
not believe this is as much of a security hole as the author makes it
out to be, *if* you know what you're doing (but then, if you didn't,
you'd still be using telnet ;-)). Since the spawned program will run
as whatever user started netcat, don't use -e as root. You have been
warned, so if some cracker breaks into your system due to your own
stupidity, don't blame me.

A symlink to the netcat binary called 'netcat' has been installed.
However, the canonical name is still 'nc'. If you use netcat on other
systems, it will probably only be installed as 'nc', so keep this in
mind when writing scripts.