dest-unreach / socat
what: "netcat++" (extended design, new implementation)
OS: AIX, BSD, HP-UX, Linux, Solaris e.a. (UNIX)
lic: GPL2
inst: tar x...; ./configure; make; make install
doc: README; socat.html, socat.1; xio.help
ui: command line
exa: socat TCP6-LISTEN:8080,reuseaddr,fork PROXY:proxy:www.domain.com:80
keyw: tcp, udp, ipv6, raw ip, unix-socket, pty, pipe, listen, socks4, socks4a,
proxy-connect, ssl-client, filedescriptor, readline, stdio,
exec, system, file, open, tail -f, termios, setsockopt, chroot,
fork, perm, owner, trace, dump, dgram, ext3, resolver, datagram,
multicast, broadcast, interface, socket, sctp, generic, ioctl
2008/11/01: the second beta version of socat version 2 is ready for download.
2008/11/01: a public git repository containing socat 1.6.0.0 and all later releases is available.
2008/10/15: socat version 1.7.0.0 brings support for SCTP stream, raw interface, and generic sockets. New option escape allows to interrupt raw terminal connections. Listening and receiving sockets can set a couple of environment variables. Added base control of System V STREAMS. Lots of corrections were performed. socat compiles on Mac OS X again.
2008/04/20: A couple of patches that were contributed within the last year
are now made available. They are:
SCTP feature (for socat 2.0.0-b1)
Mac OS X port (for socat 1.6.0.1)
Proxy certificates feature (for
socat 1.6.0.0)
GNU Hurd port (for socat 1.6.0.0)
2008/02/09: socat version 1.6.0.1 fixes lots of bugs (zombie processes, service name resolution, higher FD numbers, etc - see CHANGES). Use of a public GIT repository has been prepared (wait for separate announcement).
2007/06/20: An extension for RFC 2217 support written by Kenneth Kassing is provided in the contrib section.
2007/06/01: Version 2 of socat is currently under development. The first beta version is available now in the download area. The main enhancement are address chains (see later parts of the Linuxwochen presentation)
2007/06/01: The author talked about socat and presented the upcoming version 2 at Linuxwochen in Vienna. You can download the presentation
You can download socat 1.7.0.0 in source form (.gz, .bz2). Feel free to check the signed md5 hashes!
Many actual Linux and BSD distributions already provide socat; for other distributions and for some commercial UNIX platforms, precompiled socat packages are available too, so search the internet if you dont´t want to bother with compiling it yourself.
There is a page with socat patches and contributions.
Classical documentation:
Mini tutorials: