Netcat is known as the TCP/IP swiss army knife. It's often used to either connect to an open TCP port (client-mode), or to listen on a port (server-mode). It can also work with UDP, do port scanning and even be used to execute remote shells. It's a commonly used …

2024 update: Updated links and use kalilinux/rolling instead of the outdated ubuntu/trusty64. The rest is still relevant today.

One of the biggest pain points of using a VM is bootstrapping it. Even if you have a pre-packaged VM, you still have to use the UI to import it …