What it does
socat is a command-line relay connecting many address and stream types, including TCP, UDP, Unix sockets, proxies and TLS endpoints.
socat connects two explicitly described endpoints, which can be sockets, terminal streams, files or proxy connections. The project’s example joins an IPv6 TCP listener to an HTTP proxy destination, with listener options controlling reuse and child processes. That makes the address expressions part of the diagnostic evidence: record the protocol, bind address and destination before comparing runs. The Unix project is GPL2 software. Use documentation matching the installed release; its homepage records address-family regressions in 1.8.0.0 and later fixes, as well as version-specific SOCKS5 parser updates. A relay’s configured endpoints define its reach, rather than a general network visibility guarantee.
Strengths
- Many stream and socket endpoint types
Sources
- socat (Oct 26, 2026)