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simonw • today at 5:38 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

Neat, works against example.com

  exec 3<>/dev/tcp/example.com/80
  printf 'GET / HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: example.com\r\nConnection: close\r\n\r\n' >&3
  cat <&3
Outputs:

  HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2026 17:37:45 GMT
  Content-Type: text/html
  ...
I always end up on example.com for this kind of thing because there are so few domains these days that don't enforce https!

Replies

QuantumNomad_ • today at 5:58 PM

example.com is also great for that reason when something fails about a captive portal on a public WiFi.

I open my web browser and go to http://example.com and get redirected to the captive portal page again and retry completing what they need from me to get internet access.

➕ show 2 replies
gabrielsroka • today at 6:24 PM

This works too

  exec 3<>/dev/tcp/example.com/80
  printf 'GET / HTTP/1.1\r
  Host: example.com\r
  Connection: close\r
  \r
  ' >&3
  cat <&3
You can even take out the \r though they should be there