Please make openbsd-netcat the default netcat as gnu-netcat has no v6

ls · 2025-09-07 00:01:21

Is it possible for Arch Linux repository maintainers to change the default provider of a package?

[root@f ~]# LC_ALL=C.UTF-8 pacman -S netcat
:: There are 2 providers available for netcat:
:: Repository extra
1) gnu-netcat 2) openbsd-netcat

Enter a number (default=1): 2

gnu-netcat really shouldn't be the default as it is more than 21 years old and has no IPv6 support. openbsd-netcat should be the default. Is this possible to change or is it alphabetically sorted?

WorMzy · 2025-09-07 00:06:30

Mod note: moving to Pacman Issues.

killertofus · 2025-09-08 00:07:16

according to the issue page it's getting removed so it will be a non issue soon™

gromit · 2025-09-08 16:56:20

I'll try to look into it, from a first glance it should either be dropped or made ranking behind the openbsd variant.

seth · 2025-09-08 21:28:36

Fwwi, nc (openbsd), netcat (gnu) and ncat (nmap) are not fully compatible implementations of the same concept.
A generic dependency will only work for basic invocation by the client process and if any user has some local scripts depending on gnu-netcat, simply replacing that w/ nc can cause weird failure b/c of colliding parameters (notably -t) or missing features.

You're almost looking at a java-like situation…

Compatible w/ all three:
https://github.com/marlam/msmtp/blob/ma … tpq/msmtpq has "nc -vz"
https://github.com/ugoviti/synbak/blob/ … s.sh#L1436 checks for netcat or nc and only uses "-w"

Hard-depends on openbsd-netcat:
https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/any/cloud-init/
https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/libvirt/

Open question: https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/zed/

The rest are make/check dependencies.

regid · 2025-11-26 01:28:37

The last version arch had is 0.7.1-12, at least in arch most widely used repositories.
There are No result when searching for it in the official repositories. I assume it was removed.

ls wrote:

It is more than 21 years old and has no IPv6 support.

At the end of 2013 that was not entirely correct. That page links to beta for 0.8 from 2014. As of the time of this writing, they have added IPv6 support 12 years ago. Back then, their IPv6 implementation had issues. At the time of this writing, the gnu-netcat-svn AUR package has a slightly more recent version then the version with the IPv6 issues. I don't know if, and how, the IPv6 issues were fixed. The -svn package at the AUR looks to me minimally maintained. Just to allow it to be built at present times.
Not that it matters much. Gnu-netcat seems unmaintained for a long time. Posting here just to get the facts right, if someone will look for them in the future.

Last edited by regid (2025-11-26 05:36:55)

Lone_Wolf · 2025-11-26 10:29:47

$ pacman -F netcat
extra/openbsd-netcat 1.234_1-1
    usr/bin/netcat
$

It appears gnu-netcat was dropped to aur .

@ ls : Please prepend [Solved] to the thread title (edit first post) to indicate to others this is no longer an issue.

Arch Linux

#1 2025-09-07 00:01:21

Please make openbsd-netcat the default netcat as gnu-netcat has no v6

#2 2025-09-07 00:06:30

Re: Please make openbsd-netcat the default netcat as gnu-netcat has no v6

#3 2025-09-08 00:07:16

Re: Please make openbsd-netcat the default netcat as gnu-netcat has no v6

#4 2025-09-08 16:56:20

Re: Please make openbsd-netcat the default netcat as gnu-netcat has no v6

#5 2025-09-08 21:28:36

Re: Please make openbsd-netcat the default netcat as gnu-netcat has no v6

#6 2025-11-26 01:28:37

Re: Please make openbsd-netcat the default netcat as gnu-netcat has no v6

#7 2025-11-26 10:29:47

Re: Please make openbsd-netcat the default netcat as gnu-netcat has no v6

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