More Smolweb: Nightfall Express

While looking around for a new misfin server I found this nice list of smolweb protocols.

Lots of space related names, lots of partial specs and even more overlap. Oddly enough the most simple protocol listed actually caught my eye as it fills the one feature missing in: large file transfer with a single request.

While there are things like anonymous ftp, a protocol like nex is nice because the server can be created in a few lines of shell code and `socat`, and the client is `telnet` or `nc` which every system has. On my lunch break I implemented a server.

nex.sh code

My nex instance

For those who want to see download progress, use `pv` along with `nc` to see rates and totals

$ echo "big_song.mp3" | nc example.co 1900 | pv > big_song.mp3

$ tags: smolweb, dev $

$ published: 2025-07-14 20:30 $

-- CC-BY-4.0 jecxjo 2025-07-14

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