__ _______________________ _________._________________________ \_ _____/ \______ \ / _ \ / _____/ / _____/ | | \_ _____/ | __) | _/ / /_\ \ / \ ___ / \ ___ | | | __)_ | \ | | \ / | \ \ \_\ \ \ \_\ \ | |___ | \ \___ / |____|_ / \____|__ / \______ / \______ / |_______ \ /_______ / \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/

katana Cheatsheet

← Back to cheatsheets

← Home

Katana is a fast web crawler designed for web application security testing. Discovers endpoints, parameters, and hidden paths through intelligent crawling and JavaScript execution.

Basic Usage

  • katana -u https://example.com - Crawl URL
  • katana -list urls.txt - Crawl from list
  • katana -u https://example.com -o output.txt - Save output
  • katana -u https://example.com -json - JSON output

Options

  • -u url - Target URL
  • -list file - URLs from file
  • -o file - Output file
  • -json - JSON output format
  • -depth N - Max crawl depth (default: 3)
  • -scope domain - Scope to domain
  • -crawl - Enable crawling
  • -js-crawl - JavaScript crawling
  • -headless - Use headless browser
  • -timeout N - Request timeout (seconds)

Filtering

  • -match-regex pattern - Match regex
  • -filter-regex pattern - Filter regex
  • -match-status 200,301 - Match status codes
  • -filter-status 404 - Filter status codes
  • -match-size N - Match response size
  • -filter-size N - Filter response size

Advanced Options

  • -delay N - Delay between requests (ms)
  • -concurrency N - Concurrent requests
  • -rate-limit N - Rate limit (req/sec)
  • -proxy http://proxy:8080 - Use proxy
  • -header "Name: Value" - Custom header
  • -cookie "name=value" - Cookie
  • -user-agent "UA" - User agent

Common Examples

Basic Crawl

katana -u https://example.com

Crawl target website.

Save Output

katana -u https://example.com -o urls.txt

Save discovered URLs.

JSON Output

katana -u https://example.com -json -o results.json

Output in JSON format.

JavaScript Crawling

katana -u https://example.com -js-crawl -headless

Enable JS execution.

Depth Limit

katana -u https://example.com -depth 5

Set crawl depth.

Scope to Domain

katana -u https://example.com -scope example.com

Limit to domain.

Filter Status

katana -u https://example.com -filter-status 404

Exclude 404 responses.

With Proxy

katana -u https://example.com -proxy http://127.0.0.1:8080

Route through proxy.

Custom Headers

katana -u https://example.com -header "Authorization: Bearer token"

Add authentication header.

From List

katana -list urls.txt -o discovered.txt

Crawl multiple URLs.

Tips

  • Use -js-crawl for modern SPAs
  • Adjust -depth based on site size
  • Use -scope to avoid crawling external sites
  • Filter out noise with -filter-status
  • Use -json for programmatic processing
  • Combine with other tools in pipelines
  • Respect rate limits and robots.txt
  • Great for endpoint discovery