serval v1.1.1 releases: Netcat style backdoor for pentesting and pentest challenges

by do son · Published October 22, 2020 · Updated November 18, 2020

serval

Serval is a lightweight, easy-to-use, binary for spawning reverse and bind shells for pentests or pentesting exercises. It is cross-platform and can be compiled for both Windows 32 & 64-bit and Linux 32 and 64-bit. Note: Due to the flexibility of Rust it may be possible to compile for other platforms (such as ARM) but I have not tested for other platforms.

Why?

I developed Serval to remove my dependency on netcat during HacktheBox challenges since it can be bothersome to find netcat binaries for Windows (especially with the -e option) and it is even more difficult to find a binary from a trusted source.

Features

Cross-comparable! Can be built for Linux or Windows
Command-line history. Up and Down arrows will scroll through command history.
Command-line history search! ctrl-r to reverse search your command history.
Line editing. Backspace and left-right arrow keys work!
Interoperability. Only have netcat on your target? No problem! The serval listener can still catch the shell and give you the advanced features.

Changelog v1.1.1

Fixed issue that caused serval to exit on interrupted syscall on Linux. Piped stderr to null.

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Use

By default, it will either listen or connect to a port and pipe standard input and output to that connection. The -e flag will spawn a process and pipe its standard input and output across the network.