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socat — Multipurpose relay (SOcket CAT). More information: <http://www.dest-unreach.org/socat/>.

Submitted by: @import:tldr-pages·Mar 2, 2026·

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Problem

How to use the socat command: Multipurpose relay (SOcket CAT). More information: <http://www.dest-unreach.org/socat/>.

Solution

socat — Multipurpose relay (SOcket CAT). More information: <http://www.dest-unreach.org/socat/>.

Listen to a port, wait for an incoming connection and transfer data to STDIO:

sudo socat - TCP-LISTEN:8080,fork

Listen on a port using SSL and print to stdout:

sudo socat OPENSSL-LISTEN:4433,reuseaddr,cert=./cert.pem,cafile=./ca.cert.pem,key=./key.pem,verify=0 STDOUT

Create a connection to a host and port, transfer data in STDIO to connected host:

sudo socat - TCP4:www.example.com:80

Forward incoming data of a local port to another host and port:

sudo socat TCP-LISTEN:80,fork TCP4:www.example.com:80

Send data with multicast routing scheme:

{{echo "Hello Multicast"}} | socat - UDP4-DATAGRAM:{{224.0.0.1}}:{{5000}}

Receive data from a multicast:

socat - UDP4-RECVFROM:{{5000}}

Code Snippets

Listen to a port, wait for an incoming connection and transfer data to STDIO

sudo socat - TCP-LISTEN:8080,fork

Listen on a port using SSL and print to `stdout`

sudo socat OPENSSL-LISTEN:4433,reuseaddr,cert=./cert.pem,cafile=./ca.cert.pem,key=./key.pem,verify=0 STDOUT

Create a connection to a host and port, transfer data in STDIO to connected host

sudo socat - TCP4:www.example.com:80

Forward incoming data of a local port to another host and port

sudo socat TCP-LISTEN:80,fork TCP4:www.example.com:80

Send data with multicast routing scheme

{{echo "Hello Multicast"}} | socat - UDP4-DATAGRAM:{{224.0.0.1}}:{{5000}}

Context

tldr-pages: common/socat

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