Socat is a relay for bidirectional data transfer between two independent data channels. Each of these data channels may be a file, pipe, device (terminal or modem, etc.), socket (Unix, IP4, IP6 - raw, UDP, TCP), SSL, a client for SOCKS4, or proxy CONNECT. It supports broadcasts and multicasts, abstract Unix sockets, Linux tun/tap, GNU readline, and PTYs. It provides forking, logging, and dumping and different modes for interprocess communication. Many options are available for tuning socat and its channels. Socat can be used, for example, as a TCP relay (one-shot or daemon), as a daemon-based socksifier, as a shell interface to Unix sockets, as an IP6 relay, or for redirecting TCP-oriented programs to a serial line.
License: GNU General Public License v2
Changes:
The main enhancements are so-called address chains that concatenate simple addresses. Address chains are similar to command shell pipes, but work bidirectionally.
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