curl cheat-sheet | transfer data from/to a server
What is curl ? 🔗
Transfers data from or to a server. Supports most protocols, including HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, SCP, etc.
Common commands 🔗
Make an HTTP GET request and dump the contents in the standard output (stdout):
curl https://example.com
Make an HTTP GET request, follow any 3xx redirects, and dump the reply headers and contents to stdout:
curl [-L|--location] [-D|--dump-header] - https://example.com
Download a file, saving the output under the filename indicated by the URL:
curl [-O|--remote-name] https://example.com/filename.zip
Send form-encoded data (POST request of type application/x-www-form-urlencoded). Use --data @file_name or --data @'-' to read from the standard input (stdin):
curl [-X|--request] POST [-d|--data] 'name=bob' http://example.com/form
Send a request with an extra header, using a custom HTTP method and over a proxy (such as BurpSuite), ignoring insecure self-signed certificates:
curl [-k|--insecure] [-x|--proxy] http://127.0.0.1:8080 [-H|--header] 'Authorization: Bearer token' [-X|--request] GET|PUT|POST|DELETE|PATCH|... https://example.com
Send data in JSON format, specifying the appropriate Content-Type header:
curl [-d|--data] '{"name":"bob"}' [-H|--header] 'Content-Type: application/json' http://example.com/users/1234
Pass client certificate and key for a resource, skipping certificate validation:
curl [-E|--cert] client.pem --key key.pem [-k|--insecure] https://example.com
Resolve a hostname to a custom IP address, with verbose output (similar to editing the /etc/hosts file for custom DNS resolution):
curl [-v|--verbose] --resolve example.com:80:127.0.0.1 http://example.com
If you need more information, check out the official manual page: https://curl.se/docs/manpage.html .
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