curl

Introduction

Up to this point, we’ve used simple utilities for specific tasks:

• ping checked connectivity,
• traceroute showed the path,
• ipconfig and arp helped with the local network,
• telnet and nc tested ports.

That’s like having a separate hammer, screwdriver, and wrench. But sometimes you need a multi-purpose tool. Today we’ll look at three such “all-in-one” tools:

• mtr — ping + traceroute on steroids,
• nmap — universal network scanner,
• curl — a command-line browser.

mtr — Real-Time Traceroute 🚀

What does it do?

Combines the features of ping and traceroute. In real time, it shows latency and packet loss percentage for each hop along the path.

Hello! If you’re even a little interested in the web, you’ve probably heard of curl. It’s a powerful and versatile command-line tool for interacting with web servers. It is used to send and receive data over various protocols: HTTP, FTP, SFTP, as well as mail protocols.

This guide is your first step. We’ll focus on the basics to help you understand how curl works and how to use it for everyday tasks.