Source: http://www.computerhope.com/unix/nc.htm
Exemple client / serveur:
Lancer un serveur, dans un terminal:
$ nc -l 1234
Lancer un client, dans un autre terminal:
$ nc 127.0.0.1 1234
Saisir du texte et appuyer sur entrée dans chacun des terminaux
$ nc -l 12345 < /tmp/fichiersource
Servir un fichier texte
$ nc -p 31337 -w 5 host.example.com 42
Opens a TCP connection to port 42 of host.example.com, using port 31337 as the source port, with a timeout of 5 seconds.
$ nc -u host.example.com 53
Opens a UDP connection to port 53 of host.example.com.
$ nc -s 10.1.2.3 host.example.com 42
Opens a TCP connection to port 42 of host.example.com using 10.1.2.3 as the IP for the local end of the connection.
$ nc -lU /var/tmp/dsocket
Creates and listens on a UNIX-domain stream socket.
$ nc -x10.2.3.4:8080 -Xconnect host.example.com 42
Connects to port 42 of host.example.com via an HTTP proxy at 10.2.3.4, port 8080. This example could also be used by ssh.
$ nc -x10.2.3.4:8080 -Xconnect -Pruser host.example.com 42
The same as the above example, but this time enabling proxy authentication with username "ruser" if the proxy requires it.