# samyk/pwnat

The only tool/technique to punch holes through firewalls/NATs where multiple clients & server can be behind separate NATs without any 3rd party involvement. Pwnat is a newly developed technique, exploiting a property of NAT translation tables, with no 3rd party, port forwarding, DMZ, DNS, router admin requirements, STUN/TURN/UPnP/ICE, or spoofing.

Repository: https://github.com/samyk/pwnat
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/pwnat
Homepage: https://samy.pl/pwnat/
Language: C
License: GPL-3.0
License Family: copyleft
Last push: 2025-12-26T23:52:15+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 49/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 59, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5136, "days_push": 250, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 3918, forks 508 (observed 2026-08-28T04:08:29.676599+00:00)

## What it is
pwnat is a C-based command-line tool that enables clients and servers behind separate NATs to communicate directly without port forwarding, DMZ setup, or any third-party relay. It exploits properties of NAT translation tables to establish UDP tunnels through firewalls, allowing TCP traffic to be tunneled over UDP.

## Use cases
- punch holes through firewalls and NATs without port forwarding
- connect to a server behind a NAT from behind another NAT
- tunnel SSH or HTTP through restrictive networks
- proxy traffic to remote hosts without a middleman server
- establish direct peer-to-peer connections without STUN or TURN
- access home services from behind corporate firewalls

## When to choose
- you need NAT-to-NAT connectivity with zero third-party infrastructure
- you cannot configure port forwarding or DMZ on either router
- you want to tunnel TCP services over UDP through firewalls
- you need a lightweight, self-contained networking tool with no dependencies

## When to avoid
- your network uses symmetric NATs that block this technique
- you need guaranteed connectivity across all firewall types
- you require high-throughput or low-latency tunneling at scale
- you need a maintained solution with active development and broad platform support

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: maintenance
- function: networking, proxy, vpn, security
- domain: networking, security, privacy, censorship-circumvention, developer-tools
- platform: cross-platform, cli
- tags: nat-traversal, nat-hole-punching, udp-tunneling, firewall-penetration, p2p, tunneling, no-third-party, c, networking-tool, icmp-based, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- samyk/pwnat (main) score 49

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:29.676599+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:25:01.806604+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/samyk/pwnat (fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:29.676599+00:00, sha 782787a7b23c)
  - homepage: https://samy.pl/pwnat/ (fetched 2026-08-29T09:18:49.592333+00:00, sha 45ff67f0b1fb)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.