Is there a program that can send data via sockets to a server, to test it?

Question

I have a simple socket server, that waits for a message and responds. How can I test this? Is there a client app or something that can help me send some data on a specific port to a server, and see the output? Telnet?

Answer 1

netcat should be able to handle anything you need to do with socket testing.

http://pctechtips.org/netcat-the-swiss-army-knife-useful-commands/#more-103

Answer 2

Windump - tcpdump works well, and has binaries available to Windows

Answer 3

Simple telnet client works well for such tests. You can also try PuTTY in either Telnet or Raw connection modes. Both allow you to choose the port you want to connect to.

Also a tool like Microsoft Network Monitor is pretty useful to analyse the protocol's data flow if you don't have direct control (by logs) on what's being sent over the wire.

Answer 4

hit the command line, and just use telnet.

if you have a simple echo server, go to town.