3

I've got an rsync daemon running on an android phone. I just want to netcat the rsync port on the phone (configured on 1873), to verify the daemon is up and listening to the port, but strangely the netcat attempt is rejected.

Rsync is working fine, it's syncing files between the phone and Ubuntu box, so there is no firewall or any other network issue blocking traffic.

Rsync daemon is listening on the port:

cepheus:/ $ netstat -ltnp 2> /dev/null | grep 1873
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:1873          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      2992/rsync

So why is the connection refused? 

$ nc -zv 192.168.1.100 1873
nc: connect to 192.168.1.100 port 1873 (tcp) failed: Connection refused

The below is just for additional background, I hope it doesn't muddy the waters. My expectation is that if a tcp port is in "listening" mode, netcat -zv should succeed given no firewall/network issues.

The rsync daemon is started via adb like so:

adb -s 192.168.1.100:5555 shell -t '/data/local/tmp/rsync --daemon --no-detach --config=/data/local/tmp/rsyncd.conf --log-file=/proc/self/fd/2'

And the local port 6010 on my ubuntu box is port forwarded to 1873 on the phone.

$ adb forward --list
192.168.1.100:5555 tcp:6010 tcp:1873

The check on the adb port works fine for instance.

$ nc -zv 192.168.1.100 5555
Connection to 192.168.1.100 5555 port [tcp/*] succeeded!

~
Update

$ nc -zv localhost 6010
nc: connect to localhost port 6010 (tcp) failed: Connection refused
Connection to localhost 6010 port [tcp/*] succeeded!

The connection attempt does actually succeed as verified in the daemon logs when setting the destination ip to localhost. The problem is that nc outputs exactly the same two lines when the daemon is down, and port closed.

Whilst Tom's answer does work, I'd rather not have the daemon listening on 0.0.0.0.

I've tried setting the source port to local rsync port, but it just results in a bind error when using 127.0.0.1 or Connection refused when setting it to internal ip address of the Ubuntu box:

$ nc -zv 192.168.1.100 1873 -s 127.0.0.1 -p 6010
nc: bind failed: Address already in use
Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

Looks like it's listening on 127.0.0.1 only. You probably need to specify 192.168.1.100 (or 0.0.0.0) as the address (in rsyncd.conf or with the command-line option).

Improve this answer
5
  • Thanks, changing it to 0.0.0.0 resolved the issue.
    – Maikol
    Commented Dec 11, 2019 at 21:56
  • However, is it the case that leaving the daemon to listen on 0.0.0.0 is less secure as any connection including those outside the lan can now be accepted? Any idea how the port forward allowed the daemon to see the incoming connection on the loopback interface adapter eventhough the connection didn't originate locally?
    – Maikol
    Commented Dec 11, 2019 at 22:17
  • I don't know what you want exactly to be honest. Either way you are exposing the daemon. If you prefer the adb way (so that you don't need to adjust the address all the time or whatever reason), it is working as well
    – Tom Yan
    Commented Dec 12, 2019 at 2:01
  • I suppose adb do it with some sort tcp tunnel (everything is encapsulated and sent to the adb port to the adb daemon whatsoever).
    – Tom Yan
    Commented Dec 12, 2019 at 2:06
  • as any connection including those outside the lan can now be accepted nope, what can actually reach it still depends on the network it is connected to.
    – Tom Yan
    Commented Dec 12, 2019 at 2:14

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .