socat(1)



socat(1)                                                              socat(1)

NAME
       socat - Multipurpose relay (SOcket CAT)

SYNOPSIS
       socat [options] <address> <address>
       socat -V
       socat -h[h[h]] | -?[?[?]]
       filan
       procan

DESCRIPTION
       Socat  is  a  command  line based utility that establishes two bidirec-
       tional byte streams  and  transfers  data  between  them.  Because  the
       streams  can be constructed from a large set of different types of data
       sinks and sources (see address types), and because lots of address  op-
       tions may be applied to the streams, socat can be used for many differ-
       ent purposes.

       Filan is a utility that prints information about its  active  file  de-
       scriptors to stdout. It has been written for debugging socat, but might
       be useful for other purposes too. Use the -h option to find more infos.

       Procan is a utility that prints information about process parameters to
       stdout.  It  has  been  written  to better understand some UNIX process
       properties and for debugging socat, but might be useful for other  pur-
       poses too.

       The life cycle of a socat instance typically consists of four phases.

       In  the  init phase, the command line options are parsed and logging is
       initialized.

       During the open phase, socat opens the first address and afterwards the
       second  address. These steps are usually blocking; thus, especially for
       complex address types like socks, connection requests or authentication
       dialogs must be completed before the next step is started.

       In  the transfer phase, socat watches both streams' read and write file
       descriptors via select() , and, when data is available on one side  and
       can  be  written  to  the  other side, socat reads it, performs newline
       character conversions if required, and writes the  data  to  the  write
       file  descriptor  of  the other stream, then continues waiting for more
       data in both directions.

       When one of the streams effectively reaches EOF, the closing phase  be-
       gins. Socat transfers the EOF condition to the other stream, i.e. tries
       to shutdown only its write stream, giving  it  a  chance  to  terminate
       gracefully.  For a defined time socat continues to transfer data in the
       other direction, but then closes all remaining channels and terminates.

OPTIONS
       Socat provides some command line options that modify the  behaviour  of
       the  program.  They  have  nothing to do with so called address options
       that are used as parts of address specifications.

       -V     Print version and available feature information to  stdout,  and
              exit.

       -h | -?
              Print  a help text to stdout describing command line options and
              available address types, and exit.

       -hh | -??
              Like -h, plus a list of the short names of all available address
              options.  Some options are platform dependend, so this output is
              helpful for checking the particular implementation.

       -hhh | -???
              Like -hh, plus a list of all available address option names.

       -d     Without this option, only fatal and error  messages  are  gener-
              ated; applying this option also prints warning messages. See DI-
              AGNOSTICS for more information.

       -d -d  Prints fatal, error, warning, and notice messages.

       -d -d -d
              Prints fatal, error, warning, notice, and info messages.

       -d -d -d -d
              Prints fatal, error, warning, notice, info, and debug messages.

       -D     Logs information about  file  descriptors  before  starting  the
              transfer phase.

       -ly[<facility>]
              Writes messages to syslog instead of stderr; severity as defined
              with -d option. With optional <facility>, the syslog type can be
              selected,  default  is "daemon". Third party libraries might not
              obey this option.

       -lf<logfile>
              Writes messages to <logfile> [filename] instead of stderr.  Some
              third  party  libraries,  in  particular libwrap, might not obey
              this option.

       -ls    Writes messages to stderr (this  is  the  default).  Some  third
              party  libraries  might not obey this option, in particular lib-
              wrap appears to only log to syslog.

       -lp<progname>
              Overrides the program name printed in error  messages  and  used
              for constructing environment variable names.

       -lu    Extends  the  timestamp of error messages to microsecond resolu-
              tion. Does not work when logging to syslog.

       -lm[<facility>]
              Mixed log mode. During startup messages are printed  to  stderr;
              when  socat  starts the transfer phase loop or daemon mode (i.e.
              after opening all streams and before starting data transfer, or,
              with listening sockets with fork option, before the first accept
              call), it switches logging to syslog.  With optional <facility>,
              the syslog type can be selected, default is "daemon".

       -lh    Adds  hostname  to log messages. Uses the value from environment
              variable HOSTNAME or the value retrieved with uname()  if  HOST-
              NAME is not set.

       -v     Writes  the  transferred  data not only to their target streams,
              but also to stderr. The output format is text with some  conver-
              sions for readability, and prefixed with "> " or "< " indicating
              flow directions.

       -x     Writes the transferred data not only to  their  target  streams,
              but  also  to stderr. The output format is hexadecimal, prefixed
              with "> " or "< " indicating flow directions.  Can  be  combined
              with -v .

       -b<size>
              Sets  the  data  transfer block <size> [size_t].  At most <size>
              bytes are transferred per step. Default is 8192 bytes.

       -s     By default, socat terminates when an error occurred  to  prevent
              the  process from running when some option could not be applied.
              With this option, socat is sloppy with errors and tries to  con-
              tinue.  Even  with  this  option, socat will exit on fatals, and
              will abort connection attempts when security checks failed.

       -t<timeout>
              When one channel has reached EOF, the write part  of  the  other
              channel is shut down. Then, socat waits <timeout> [timeval] sec-
              onds before terminating. Default is 0.5  seconds.  This  timeout
              only  applies  to  addresses  where  write  and read part can be
              closed independently. When during the timeout interval the  read
              part gives EOF, socat terminates without awaiting the timeout.

       -T<timeout>
              Total  inactivity timeout: when socat is already in the transfer
              loop and nothing has happened for  <timeout>  [timeval]  seconds
              (no  data arrived, no interrupt occurred...) then it terminates.
              Useful with protocols like UDP that cannot transfer EOF.

       -u     Uses unidirectional mode. The first address  is  only  used  for
              reading,  and the second address is only used for writing (exam-
              ple).

       -U     Uses unidirectional mode in reverse direction. The first address
              is  only  used  for writing, and the second address is only used
              for reading.

       -g     During address option parsing, don't check if the option is con-
              sidered  useful  in the given address environment. Use it if you
              want to force, e.g., appliance of a socket option  to  a  serial
              device.

       -L<lockfile>
              If  lockfile  exists, exits with error. If lockfile does not ex-
              ist, creates it and continues, unlinks lockfile on exit.

       -W<lockfile>
              If lockfile exists, waits until  it  disappears.  When  lockfile
              does  not  exist,  creates it and continues, unlinks lockfile on
              exit.

       -4     Use IP version 4 in case that the addresses do not implicitly or
              explicitly specify a version; this is the default.

       -6     Use IP version 6 in case that the addresses do not implicitly or
              explicitly specify a version.

ADDRESS SPECIFICATIONS
       With the address command line arguments, the user gives socat  instruc-
       tions and the necessary information for establishing the byte streams.

       An  address  specification usually consists of an address type keyword,
       zero or more required address parameters separated by ':' from the key-
       word and from each other, and zero or more address options separated by
       ','.

       The keyword specifies the address type (e.g., TCP4,  OPEN,  EXEC).  For
       some  keywords there exist synonyms ('-' for STDIO, TCP for TCP4). Key-
       words are case insensitive.  For a few special address types, the  key-
       word  may be omitted: Address specifications starting with a number are
       assumed to be FD (raw file descriptor) addresses; if a '/' is found be-
       fore the first ':' or ',', GOPEN (generic file open) is assumed.

       The  required  number  and type of address parameters depend on the ad-
       dress type. E.g., TCP4 requires a server  specification  (name  or  ad-
       dress), and a port specification (number or service name).

       Zero  or  more address options may be given with each address. They in-
       fluence the address in some ways.  Options consist of an option keyword
       or an option keyword and a value, separated by '='. Option keywords are
       case insensitive.  For filtering the options that are  useful  with  an
       address  type,  each option is member of one option group. For each ad-
       dress type there is a set of option groups allowed.  Only  options  be-
       longing  to one of these address groups may be used (except with option
       -g).

       Address specifications following the above schema are also called  sin-
       gle  address specifications.  Two single addresses can be combined with
       "!!" to form a dual type address for one channel. Here, the  first  ad-
       dress  is  used  by  socat for reading data, and the second address for
       writing data. There is no way to specify an option only once for  being
       applied to both single addresses.

       Usually,  addresses  are  opened in read/write mode. When an address is
       part of a dual address specification, or when option -u or -U is  used,
       an  address  might be used only for reading or for writing. Considering
       this is important with some address types.

       With socat version 1.5.0 and higher, the lexical analysis tries to han-
       dle  quotes and parenthesis meaningfully and allows escaping of special
       characters.  If one of the characters ( { [ ' is found, the correspond-
       ing  closing  character  -  )  }  ] ' - is looked for; they may also be
       nested. Within these constructs, socats special characters and  strings
       :  , !! are not handled specially. All those characters and strings can
       be escaped with \ or within ""

ADDRESS TYPES
       This section describes the available address types with their keywords,
       parameters, and semantics.

       CREATE:<filename>
              Opens  <filename>  with creat() and uses the file descriptor for
              writing.  This address type requires write-only context, because
              a file opened with creat cannot be read from.
              Flags  like  O_LARGEFILE cannot be applied. If you need them use
              OPEN with options create,create.
              <filename> must be a valid existing or not  existing  path.   If
              <filename>  is  a named pipe, creat() might block; if <filename>
              refers to a socket, this is an error.
              Option groups: FD,REG,NAMED
              Useful options: mode, user,  group,  unlink-early,  unlink-late,
              append
              See also: OPEN, GOPEN

       EXEC:<command-line>
              Forks a sub process that establishes communication with its par-
              ent process and invokes the specified program  with  execvp()  .
              <command-line>  is  a simple command with arguments separated by
              single spaces. If the program name contains a '/', the part  af-
              ter  the  last '/' is taken as ARGV[0]. If the program name is a
              relative path, the execvp() semantics for  finding  the  program
              via  $PATH  apply.  After successful program start, socat writes
              data to stdin of the process and reads from its stdout  using  a
              UNIX domain socket generated by socketpair() per default. (exam-
              ple)
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,EXEC,FORK,TERMIOS
              Useful options: path, fdin, fdout,  chroot,  su,  su-d,  nofork,
              pty, stderr, ctty, setsid, pipes, login, sigint, sigquit
              See also: SYSTEM

       FD:<fdnum>
              Uses the file descriptor <fdnum>. It must already exist as valid
              UN*X file descriptor.
              Option groups: FD (TERMIOS,REG,SOCKET)
              See also: STDIO, STDIN, STDOUT, STDERR

       GOPEN:<filename>
              (Generic open) This address type tries to handle any file system
              entry  except directories usefully. <filename> may be a relative
              or absolute path. If it already exists, its type is checked.  In
              case  of  a  UNIX  domain  socket, socat connects; if connecting
              fails, socat assumes a datagram socket and uses sendto()  calls.
              If  the entry is not a socket, socat opens it applying the O_AP-
              PEND flag.  If it does not exist, it is opened with flag O_CREAT
              as a regular file (example).
              Option groups: FD,REG,SOCKET,NAMED,OPEN
              See also: OPEN, CREATE, UNIX-CONNECT

       IP-SENDTO:<host>:<protocol>
              Opens a raw IP socket. Depending on host specification or option
              pf, IP protocol version 4 or 6 is used. It  uses  <protocol>  to
              send  packets  to  <host> [IP address] and receives packets from
              host, ignores packets from other hosts.  Protocol 255  uses  the
              raw socket with the IP header being part of the data.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,IP6
              Useful options: pf, ttl
              See   also:   IP4-SENDTO,   IP6-SENDTO,   IP-RECVFROM,  IP-RECV,
              UDP-SENDTO, UNIX-SENDTO

       INTERFACE:<interface>
              Communicates with a network connected on an interface using  raw
              packets  including  link  level data. <interface> is the name of
              the network interface. Currently only available on  Linux.   Op-
              tion groups: FD,SOCKET
              Useful options: pf, type
              See also: ip-recv

       IP4-SENDTO:<host>:<protocol>
              Like IP-SENDTO, but always uses IPv4.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4

       IP6-SENDTO:<host>:<protocol>
              Like IP-SENDTO, but always uses IPv6.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP6

       IP-DATAGRAM:<address>:<protocol>
              Sends  outgoing  data to the specified address which may in par-
              ticular be a broadcast or multicast address. Packets arriving on
              the  local  socket  are  checked if their source addresses match
              RANGE or TCPWRAP options. This address type can for  example  be
              used  for implementing symmetric or asymmetric broadcast or mul-
              ticast communications.
              Option groups: FD, SOCKET, IP4, IP6, RANGE
              Useful  options:  bind,  range,  tcpwrap,  broadcast,  ip-multi-
              cast-loop, ip-multicast-ttl, ip-multicast-if, ip-add-membership,
              ttl, tos, pf
              See also: IP4-DATAGRAM,  IP6-DATAGRAM,  IP-SENDTO,  IP-RECVFROM,
              IP-RECV, UDP-DATAGRAM

       IP4-DATAGRAM:<host>:<protocol>
              Like IP-DATAGRAM, but always uses IPv4.  (example)
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,RANGE

       IP6-DATAGRAM:<host>:<protocol>
              Like  IP-DATAGRAM,  but  always uses IPv6. Please note that IPv6
              does not know broadcasts.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP6,RANGE

       IP-RECVFROM:<protocol>
              Opens a raw IP socket of <protocol>. Depending on option pf,  IP
              protocol  version 4 or 6 is used. It receives one packet from an
              unspecified peer and may send one or more answer packets to that
              peer.   This  mode is particularly useful with fork option where
              each arriving packet - from arbitrary peers - is handled by  its
              own sub process.  This allows a behaviour similar to typical UDP
              based servers like ntpd or named.
              Please note that the reply packets might be fetched as  incoming
              traffic  when  sender  and receiver IP address are identical be-
              cause there is no port number to distinguish the sockets.
              This address  works  well  with  IP-SENDTO  address  peers  (see
              above).  Protocol 255 uses the raw socket with the IP header be-
              ing part of the data.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,IP6,CHILD,RANGE
              Useful options: pf, fork, range, ttl, broadcast
              See  also:  IP4-RECVFROM,  IP6-RECVFROM,   IP-SENDTO,   IP-RECV,
              UDP-RECVFROM, UNIX-RECVFROM

       IP4-RECVFROM:<protocol>
              Like IP-RECVFROM, but always uses IPv4.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,CHILD,RANGE

       IP6-RECVFROM:<protocol>
              Like IP-RECVFROM, but always uses IPv6.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP6,CHILD,RANGE

       IP-RECV:<protocol>
              Opens  a raw IP socket of <protocol>. Depending on option pf, IP
              protocol version 4 or 6 is used. It receives packets from multi-
              ple  unspecified peers and merges the data.  No replies are pos-
              sible.  It can be, e.g., addressed by  socat  IP-SENDTO  address
              peers.   Protocol 255 uses the raw socket with the IP header be-
              ing part of the data.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,IP6,RANGE
              Useful options: pf, range
              See also: IP4-RECV, IP6-RECV, IP-SENDTO, IP-RECVFROM,  UDP-RECV,
              UNIX-RECV

       IP4-RECV:<protocol>
              Like IP-RECV, but always uses IPv4.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,RANGE

       IP6-RECV:<protocol>
              Like IP-RECV, but always uses IPv6.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP6,RANGE

       OPEN:<filename>
              Opens  <filename>  using the open() system call (example).  This
              operation fails on UNIX domain sockets.
              Note: This address type is rarely useful in bidirectional mode.
              Option groups: FD,REG,NAMED,OPEN
              Useful options: creat, excl, noatime, nofollow, append,  rdonly,
              wronly, lock, readbytes, ignoreeof
              See also: CREATE, GOPEN, UNIX-CONNECT

       OPENSSL:<host>:<port>
              Tries  to  establish a SSL connection to <port> [TCP service] on
              <host> [IP address] using TCP/IP version 4 or 6 depending on ad-
              dress specification, name resolution, or option pf.
              NOTE:  Up  to  version  1.7.2.4  the server certificate was only
              checked for validity against the  system  certificate  store  or
              cafile  or  capath,  but not for match with the server's name or
              its IP address.  Since version 1.7.3.0  socat  checks  the  peer
              certificate  for match with the <host> parameter or the value of
              the openssl-commonname option.  Socat tries to match it  against
              the  certificates subject commonName, and the certifications ex-
              tension subjectAltName DNS names. Wildcards in  the  certificate
              are supported.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,IP6,TCP,OPENSSL,RETRY
              Useful options: cipher, verify, commonname, cafile, capath, cer-
              tificate, key, compress, bind, pf, connect-timeout,  sourceport,
              retry
              See also: OPENSSL-LISTEN, TCP

       OPENSSL-LISTEN:<port>
              Listens on tcp <port> [TCP service].  The IP version is 4 or the
              one specified with pf. When a connection is accepted,  this  ad-
              dress behaves as SSL server.
              Note:  You probably want to use the certificate option with this
              address.
              NOTE: The  client  certificate  is  only  checked  for  validity
              against  cafile  or  capath, but not for match with the client's
              name or its IP address!
              Option            groups:             FD,SOCKET,IP4,IP6,TCP,LIS-
              TEN,OPENSSL,CHILD,RANGE,RETRY
              Useful  options: pf, cipher, verify, commonname, cafile, capath,
              certificate, key, compress,  fork,  bind,  range,  tcpwrap,  su,
              reuseaddr, retry
              See also: OPENSSL, TCP-LISTEN

       PIPE:<filename>
              If  <filename> already exists, it is opened.  If it does not ex-
              ist, a named pipe is created and opened.  Beginning  with  socat
              version  1.4.3,  the  named  pipe is removed when the address is
              closed (but see option unlink-close
              Note: When a pipe is used for both reading and writing, it works
              as echo service.
              Note:  When a pipe is used for both reading and writing, and so-
              cat tries to write more bytes than the pipe  can  buffer  (Linux
              2.4:  2048  bytes),  socat might block. Consider using socat op-
              tion, e.g., -b 2048
              Option groups: FD,NAMED,OPEN
              Useful  options:  rdonly,  nonblock,  group,  user,  mode,   un-
              link-early
              See also: unnamed pipe

       PIPE   Creates  an unnamed pipe and uses it for reading and writing. It
              works as an echo, because everything written to it appeares  im-
              mediately as read data.
              Note:  When  socat  tries  to write more bytes than the pipe can
              queue (Linux 2.4: 2048  bytes),  socat  might  block.  Consider,
              e.g., using option -b 2048
              Option groups: FD
              See also: named pipe

       PROXY:<proxy>:<hostname>:<port>
              Connects to an HTTP proxy server on port 8080 using TCP/IP  ver-
              sion 4 or 6 depending on address specification, name resolution,
              or  option pf, and sends a CONNECT request for hostname:port. If
              the proxy grants access and succeeds to connect to  the  target,
              data  transfer between socat and the target can start. Note that
              the traffic need not be HTTP but can be an arbitrary protocol.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,IP6,TCP,HTTP,RETRY
              Useful options: proxyport, ignorecr, proxyauth,  resolve,  crnl,
              bind, connect-timeout, mss, sourceport, retry
              See also: SOCKS, TCP

       PTY    Generates  a pseudo terminal (pty) and uses its master side. An-
              other process may open the pty's slave side using it like a  se-
              rial  line  or  terminal.   (example).  If both the ptmx and the
              openpty mechanisms are available, ptmx is used (POSIX).
              Option groups: FD,NAMED,PTY,TERMIOS
              Useful options: link, openpty, wait-slave, mode, user, group
              See also: UNIX-LISTEN, PIPE, EXEC, SYSTEM

       READLINE
              Uses GNU readline and history on  stdio  to  allow  editing  and
              reusing input lines (example).
              Due  to  licensing restrictions the readline feature is disabled
              in Debian.  See BUGS.
              You can use STDIO instead.

       SCTP-CONNECT:<host>:<port>
              Establishes an SCTP stream connection to  the  specified  <host>
              [IP  address]  and  <port> [TCP service] using IP version 4 or 6
              depending on address specification, name resolution,  or  option
              pf.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,IP6,SCTP,CHILD,RETRY
              Useful  options:  bind,  pf,  connect-timeout, tos, mtudiscover,
              sctp-maxseg, sctp-nodelay, nonblock,  sourceport,  retry,  read-
              bytes
              See also: SCTP4-CONNECT, SCTP6-CONNECT, SCTP-LISTEN, TCP-CONNECT

       SCTP4-CONNECT:<host>:<port>
              Like SCTP-CONNECT, but only supports IPv4 protocol.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,SCTP,CHILD,RETRY

       SCTP6-CONNECT:<host>:<port>
              Like SCTP-CONNECT, but only supports IPv6 protocol.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP6,SCTP,CHILD,RETRY

       SCTP-LISTEN:<port>
              Listens  on <port> [TCP service] and accepts an SCTP connection.
              The IP version is 4 or the one specified with address option pf,
              socat   option  (-4,  -6),  or  environment  variable  SOCAT_DE-
              FAULT_LISTEN_IP.  Note that opening this address usually  blocks
              until a client connects.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,LISTEN,CHILD,RANGE,IP4,IP6,SCTP,RETRY
              Useful  options: crnl, fork, bind, range, tcpwrap, pf, max-chil-
              dren, backlog, sctp-maxseg, sctp-nodelay, su, reuseaddr,  retry,
              cool-write
              See also: SCTP4-LISTEN, SCTP6-LISTEN, TCP-LISTEN, SCTP-CONNECT

       SCTP4-LISTEN:<port>
              Like SCTP-LISTEN, but only supports IPv4 protocol.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,LISTEN,CHILD,RANGE,IP4,SCTP,RETRY

       SCTP6-LISTEN:<port>
              Like SCTP-LISTEN, but only supports IPv6 protocol.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,LISTEN,CHILD,RANGE,IP6,SCTP,RETRY

       SOCKET-CONNECT:<domain>:<protocol>:<remote-address>
              Creates  a stream socket using the first and second given socket
              parameters and SOCK_STREAM (see man socket(2)) and  connects  to
              the remote-address.  The two socket parameters have to be speci-
              fied by int numbers. Consult your OS documentation  and  include
              files to find the appropriate values. The remote-address must be
              the data representation of a sockaddr structure without  sa_fam-
              ily and (BSD) sa_len components.
              Please  note  that you can - beyond the options of the specified
              groups - also use options of higher level protocols when you ap-
              ply socat option -g.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,CHILD,RETRY
              Useful  options:  bind, setsockopt-int, setsockopt-bin, setsock-
              opt-string
              See  also:  TCP,   UDP-CONNECT,   UNIX-CONNECT,   SOCKET-LISTEN,
              SOCKET-SENDTO

       SOCKET-DATAGRAM:<domain>:<type>:<protocol>:<remote-address>
              Creates a datagram socket using the first three given socket pa-
              rameters (see man socket(2)) and sends outgoing data to the  re-
              mote-address.  The  three socket parameters have to be specified
              by int numbers. Consult your OS documentation and include  files
              to  find  the appropriate values. The remote-address must be the
              data representation of a sockaddr  structure  without  sa_family
              and (BSD) sa_len components.
              Please  note  that you can - beyond the options of the specified
              groups - also use options of higher level protocols when you ap-
              ply socat option -g.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,RANGE
              Useful  options:  bind,  range,  setsockopt-int, setsockopt-bin,
              setsockopt-string
              See also: UDP-DATAGRAM, IP-DATAGRAM, SOCKET-SENDTO, SOCKET-RECV,
              SOCKET-RECVFROM

       SOCKET-LISTEN:<domain>:<protocol>:<local-address>
              Creates  a stream socket using the first and second given socket
              parameters and SOCK_STREAM (see man socket(2)) and waits for in-
              coming  connections  on local-address. The two socket parameters
              have to be specified by int numbers. Consult your OS  documenta-
              tion  and  include files to find the appropriate values. The lo-
              cal-address must be the data representation of a sockaddr struc-
              ture without sa_family and (BSD) sa_len components.
              Please  note  that you can - beyond the options of the specified
              groups - also use options of higher level protocols when you ap-
              ply socat option -g.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,LISTEN,RANGE,CHILD,RETRY
              Useful   options:   setsockopt-int,   setsockopt-bin,   setsock-
              opt-string
              See  also:  TCP,   UDP-CONNECT,   UNIX-CONNECT,   SOCKET-LISTEN,
              SOCKET-SENDTO, SOCKET-SENDTO

       SOCKET-RECV:<domain>:<type>:<protocol>:<local-address>
              Creates  a  socket  using the three given socket parameters (see
              man socket(2)) and binds it to <local-address>. Receives  arriv-
              ing  data. The three parameters have to be specified by int num-
              bers. Consult your OS documentation and include  files  to  find
              the  appropriate values. The local-address must be the data rep-
              resentation of a sockaddr structure without sa_family and  (BSD)
              sa_len components.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,RANGE
              Useful  options: range, setsockopt-int, setsockopt-bin, setsock-
              opt-string
              See  also:  UDP-RECV,   IP-RECV,   UNIX-RECV,   SOCKET-DATAGRAM,
              SOCKET-SENDTO, SOCKET-RECVFROM

       SOCKET-RECVFROM:<domain>:<type>:<protocol>:<local-address>
              Creates  a  socket  using the three given socket parameters (see
              man socket(2)) and binds it to <local-address>. Receives  arriv-
              ing  data  and sends replies back to the sender. The first three
              parameters have to be specified as int numbers. Consult your  OS
              documentation  and include files to find the appropriate values.
              The local-address must be the data representation of a  sockaddr
              structure without sa_family and (BSD) sa_len components.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,CHILD,RANGE
              Useful  options:  fork,  range,  setsockopt-int, setsockopt-bin,
              setsockopt-string
              See also: UDP-RECVFROM, IP-RECVFROM, UNIX-RECVFROM, SOCKET-DATA-
              GRAM, SOCKET-SENDTO, SOCKET-RECV

       SOCKET-SENDTO:<domain>:<type>:<protocol>:<remote-address>
              Creates  a  socket  using the three given socket parameters (see
              man socket(2)). Sends outgoing data to the given address and re-
              ceives  replies.   The  three parameters have to be specified as
              int numbers. Consult your OS documentation and include files  to
              find the appropriate values. The remote-address must be the data
              representation of a sockaddr  structure  without  sa_family  and
              (BSD) sa_len components.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET
              Useful  options:  bind, setsockopt-int, setsockopt-bin, setsock-
              opt-string
              See also: UDP-SENDTO, IP-SENDTO,  UNIX-SENDTO,  SOCKET-DATAGRAM,
              SOCKET-RECV SOCKET-RECVFROM

       SOCKS4:<socks-server>:<host>:<port>
              Connects  via  <socks-server>  [IP  address] to <host> [IPv4 ad-
              dress] on <port> [TCP service], using socks version  4  protocol
              over  IP version 4 or 6 depending on address specification, name
              resolution, or option pf (example).
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,IP6,TCP,SOCKS4,RETRY
              Useful options: socksuser, socksport, sourceport, pf, retry
              See also: SOCKS4A, PROXY, TCP

       SOCKS4A:<socks-server>:<host>:<port>
              like SOCKS4, but uses socks protocol version  4a,  thus  leaving
              host name resolution to the socks server.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,IP6,TCP,SOCKS4,RETRY

       STDERR Uses file descriptor 2.
              Option groups: FD (TERMIOS,REG,SOCKET)
              See also: FD

       STDIN  Uses file descriptor 0.
              Option groups: FD (TERMIOS,REG,SOCKET)
              Useful options: readbytes
              See also: FD

       STDIO  Uses file descriptor 0 for reading, and 1 for writing.
              Option groups: FD (TERMIOS,REG,SOCKET)
              Useful options: readbytes
              See also: FD

       STDOUT Uses file descriptor 1.
              Option groups: FD (TERMIOS,REG,SOCKET)
              See also: FD

       SYSTEM:<shell-command>
              Forks a sub process that establishes communication with its par-
              ent process and invokes the specified program  with  system()  .
              Please  note  that <shell-command> [string] must not contain ','
              or "!!", and that shell meta characters  may  have  to  be  pro-
              tected.   After  successful  program start, socat writes data to
              stdin of the process and reads from its stdout.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,EXEC,FORK,TERMIOS
              Useful options: path, fdin, fdout,  chroot,  su,  su-d,  nofork,
              pty, stderr, ctty, setsid, pipes, sigint, sigquit
              See also: EXEC

       TCP:<host>:<port>
              Connects  to  <port>  [TCP service] on <host> [IP address] using
              TCP/IP version 4 or 6 depending on address  specification,  name
              resolution, or option pf.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,IP6,TCP,RETRY
              Useful  options:  crnl,  bind, pf, connect-timeout, tos, mtudis-
              cover, mss, nodelay, nonblock, sourceport, retry, readbytes
              See also: TCP4, TCP6, TCP-LISTEN, UDP,  SCTP-CONNECT,  UNIX-CON-
              NECT

       TCP4:<host>:<port>
              Like TCP, but only supports IPv4 protocol (example).
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,TCP,RETRY

       TCP6:<host>:<port>
              Like TCP, but only supports IPv6 protocol.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP6,TCP,RETRY

       TCP-LISTEN:<port>
              Listens on <port> [TCP service] and accepts a TCP/IP connection.
              The IP version is 4 or the one specified with address option pf,
              socat   option  (-4,  -6),  or  environment  variable  SOCAT_DE-
              FAULT_LISTEN_IP.  Note that opening this address usually  blocks
              until a client connects.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,LISTEN,CHILD,RANGE,IP4,IP6,TCP,RETRY
              Useful  options: crnl, fork, bind, range, tcpwrap, pf, max-chil-
              dren, backlog, mss, su, reuseaddr, retry, cool-write
              See also:  TCP4-LISTEN,  TCP6-LISTEN,  UDP-LISTEN,  SCTP-LISTEN,
              UNIX-LISTEN, OPENSSL-LISTEN, TCP-CONNECT

       TCP4-LISTEN:<port>
              Like TCP-LISTEN, but only supports IPv4 protocol (example).
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,LISTEN,CHILD,RANGE,IP4,TCP,RETRY

       TCP6-LISTEN:<port>
              Like TCP-LISTEN, but only supports IPv6 protocol.
              Additional useful option: ipv6only
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,LISTEN,CHILD,RANGE,IP6,TCP,RETRY

       TUN[:<if-addr>/<bits>]
              Creates  a  Linux  TUN/TAP device and optionally assignes it the
              address and netmask given by the parameters. The resulting  net-
              work interface is almost ready for use by other processes; socat
              serves its "wire side". This address requires read and write ac-
              cess  to  the  tunnel  cloning device, usually /dev/net/tun , as
              well as permission to set some ioctl()s.  Option iff-up  is  re-
              quired to immediately activate the interface!
              Option groups: FD,NAMED,OPEN,TUN
              Useful   options:   iff-up,   tun-device,   tun-name,  tun-type,
              iff-no-pi
              See also: ip-recv

       UDP:<host>:<port>
              Connects to <port> [UDP service] on <host>  [IP  address]  using
              UDP/IP  version  4 or 6 depending on address specification, name
              resolution, or option pf.
              Please note that, due to UDP protocol properties, no  real  con-
              nection  is established; data has to be sent for `connecting' to
              the server, and no end-of-file condition can be transported.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,IP6
              Useful options: ttl, tos, bind, sourceport, pf
              See also: UDP4, UDP6, UDP-LISTEN, TCP, IP

       UDP4:<host>:<port>
              Like UDP, but only supports IPv4 protocol.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4

       UDP6:<host>:<port>
              Like UDP, but only supports IPv6 protocol.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP6

       UDP-DATAGRAM:<address>:<port>
              Sends outgoing data to the specified address which may  in  par-
              ticular be a broadcast or multicast address. Packets arriving on
              the local socket are checked for the correct remote port and  if
              their  source addresses match RANGE or TCPWRAP options. This ad-
              dress type can for example be used for implementing symmetric or
              asymmetric broadcast or multicast communications.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,IP6,RANGE
              Useful  options:  bind,  range,  tcpwrap,  broadcast,  ip-multi-
              cast-loop, ip-multicast-ttl, ip-multicast-if, ip-add-membership,
              ttl, tos, sourceport, pf
              See     also:    UDP4-DATAGRAM,    UDP6-DATAGRAM,    UDP-SENDTO,
              UDP-RECVFROM, UDP-RECV, UDP-CONNECT, UDP-LISTEN, IP-DATAGRAM

       UDP4-DATAGRAM:<address>:<port>
              Like UDP-DATAGRAM, but only supports  IPv4  protocol  (example1,
              example2).
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4, RANGE

       UDP6-DATAGRAM:<address>:<port>
              Like UDP-DATAGRAM, but only supports IPv6 protocol.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP6,RANGE

       UDP-LISTEN:<port>
              Waits  for  a UDP/IP packet arriving on <port> [UDP service] and
              `connects' back to sender.  The accepted IP version is 4 or  the
              one specified with option pf.  Please note that, due to UDP pro-
              tocol properties, no real connection is established; data has to
              arrive  from the peer first, and no end-of-file condition can be
              transported. Note that opening this address usually blocks until
              a client connects.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,LISTEN,CHILD,RANGE,IP4,IP6
              Useful options: fork, bind, range, pf
              See also: UDP, UDP4-LISTEN, UDP6-LISTEN, TCP-LISTEN

       UDP4-LISTEN:<port>
              Like UDP-LISTEN, but only support IPv4 protocol.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,LISTEN,CHILD,RANGE,IP4

       UDP6-LISTEN:<port>
              Like UDP-LISTEN, but only support IPv6 protocol.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,LISTEN,CHILD,RANGE,IP6

       UDP-SENDTO:<host>:<port>
              Communicates  with  the specified peer socket, defined by <port>
              [UDP service] on <host> [IP address], using UDP/IP version 4  or
              6 depending on address specification, name resolution, or option
              pf. It sends packets to and  receives  packets  from  that  peer
              socket  only.   This  address  effectively implements a datagram
              client.  It works well with socat UDP-RECVFROM and UDP-RECV  ad-
              dress peers.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,IP6
              Useful options: ttl, tos, bind, sourceport, pf
              See  also:  UDP4-SENDTO,  UDP6-SENDTO,  UDP-RECVFROM,  UDP-RECV,
              UDP-CONNECT, UDP-LISTEN, IP-SENDTO

       UDP4-SENDTO:<host>:<port>
              Like UDP-SENDTO, but only supports IPv4 protocol.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4

       UDP6-SENDTO:<host>:<port>
              Like UDP-SENDTO, but only supports IPv6 protocol.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP6

       UDP-RECVFROM:<port>
              Creates a UDP socket on <port> [UDP service] using  UDP/IP  ver-
              sion 4 or 6 depending on option pf.  It receives one packet from
              an unspecified peer and may send one or more answer  packets  to
              that  peer.  This  mode  is particularly useful with fork option
              where each arriving packet - from arbitrary peers -  is  handled
              by its own sub process. This allows a behaviour similar to typi-
              cal UDP based servers like ntpd or  named.  This  address  works
              well with socat UDP-SENDTO address peers.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,IP6,CHILD,RANGE
              Useful options: fork, ttl, tos, bind, sourceport, pf
              See  also:  UDP4-RECVFROM,  UDP6-RECVFROM, UDP-SENDTO, UDP-RECV,
              UDP-CONNECT, UDP-LISTEN, IP-RECVFROM, UNIX-RECVFROM

       UDP4-RECVFROM:<port>
              Like UDP-RECVFROM, but only supports IPv4 protocol.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,CHILD,RANGE

       UDP6-RECVFROM:<port>
              Like UDP-RECVFROM, but only supports IPv6 protocol.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP6,CHILD,RANGE

       UDP-RECV:<port>
              Creates a UDP socket on <port> [UDP service] using  UDP/IP  ver-
              sion  4  or  6 depending on option pf.  It receives packets from
              multiple unspecified peers and merges the data.  No replies  are
              possible.  It  works  well  with, e.g., socat UDP-SENDTO address
              peers; it behaves similar to a syslog server.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,IP6,RANGE
              Useful options: fork, pf, bind, sourceport, ttl, tos
              See  also:  UDP4-RECV,  UDP6-RECV,   UDP-SENDTO,   UDP-RECVFROM,
              UDP-CONNECT, UDP-LISTEN, IP-RECV, UNIX-RECV

       UDP4-RECV:<port>
              Like UDP-RECV, but only supports IPv4 protocol.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP4,RANGE

       UDP6-RECV:<port>
              Like UDP-RECV, but only supports IPv6 protocol.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,IP6,RANGE

       UNIX-CONNECT:<filename>
              Connects  to <filename> assuming it is a UNIX domain socket.  If
              <filename> does not exist, this is an error;  if  <filename>  is
              not  a  UNIX domain socket, this is an error; if <filename> is a
              UNIX domain socket, but no process is listening, this is an  er-
              ror.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,NAMED,RETRY,UNIX
              ) Useful options: bind
              See also: UNIX-LISTEN, UNIX-SENDTO, TCP

       UNIX-LISTEN:<filename>
              Listens  on <filename> using a UNIX domain stream socket and ac-
              cepts a connection.  If <filename> exists and is not  a  socket,
              this  is  an  error.   If <filename> exists and is a UNIX domain
              socket, binding to the address fails (use option unlink-early!).
              Note  that  opening  this  address usually blocks until a client
              connects.  Beginning with socat version 1.4.3, the  file  system
              entry is removed when this address is closed (but see option un-
              link-close) (example).
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,NAMED,LISTEN,CHILD,RETRY,UNIX
              Useful options: fork, umask, mode, user, group, unlink-early
              See also: UNIX-CONNECT, UNIX-RECVFROM, UNIX-RECV, TCP-LISTEN

       UNIX-SENDTO:<filename>
              Communicates with the specified peer socket, defined by  [<file-
              name>]  assuming  it is a UNIX domain datagram socket.  It sends
              packets to and receives packets  from  that  peer  socket  only.
              Please  note that it might be necessary to bind the local socket
              to an address (e.g. /tmp/sock1, which must  not  exist  before).
              This  address  type  works  well  with  socat  UNIX-RECVFROM and
              UNIX-RECV address peers.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,NAMED,UNIX
              Useful options: bind
              See also: UNIX-RECVFROM,  UNIX-RECV,  UNIX-CONNECT,  UDP-SENDTO,
              IP-SENDTO

       UNIX-RECVFROM:<filename>
              Creates  a  UNIX  domain datagram socket [<filename>].  Receives
              one packet and may send one or more answer packets to that peer.
              This mode is particularly useful with fork option where each ar-
              riving packet - from arbitrary peers - is handled by its own sub
              process.  This address works well with socat UNIX-SENDTO address
              peers.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,NAMED,CHILD,UNIX
              Useful options: fork
              See also:  UNIX-SENDTO,  UNIX-RECV,  UNIX-LISTEN,  UDP-RECVFROM,
              IP-RECVFROM

       UNIX-RECV:<filename>
              Creates  a  UNIX  domain datagram socket [<filename>].  Receives
              packets from multiple unspecified peers and merges the data.  No
              replies  are  possible.  It  can  be,  e.g.,  addressed by socat
              UNIX-SENDTO address peers.   It  behaves  similar  to  a  syslog
              server.  Option groups: FD,SOCKET,NAMED,UNIX
              See  also:  UNIX-SENDTO,  UNIX-RECVFROM,  UNIX-LISTEN, UDP-RECV,
              IP-RECV

       UNIX-CLIENT:<filename>
              Communicates with the specified peer socket, defined by  [<file-
              name>]  assuming  it is a UNIX domain socket.  It first tries to
              connect and, if that fails, assumes it  is  a  datagram  socket,
              thus supporting both types.
              Option groups: FD,SOCKET,NAMED,UNIX
              Useful options: bind
              See also: UNIX-CONNECT, UNIX-SENDTO, GOPEN

       ABSTRACT-CONNECT:<string>

       ABSTRACT-LISTEN:<string>

       ABSTRACT-SENDTO:<string>

       ABSTRACT-RECVFROM:<string>

       ABSTRACT-RECV:<string>

       ABSTRACT-CLIENT:<string>
              The  ABSTRACT addresses are almost identical to the related UNIX
              addresses except that they do  not  address  file  system  based
              sockets  but  an alternate UNIX domain address space. To achieve
              this the socket address strings are prefixed  with  "\0"  inter-
              nally.  This  feature  is  available  (only?)  on Linux.  Option
              groups are the same as with the related UNIX  addresses,  except
              that the ABSTRACT addresses are not member of the NAMED group.

ADDRESS OPTIONS
       Address  options  can be applied to address specifications to influence
       the process of opening the addresses and the properties of the  result-
       ing data channels.

       For  technical reasons not every option can be applied to every address
       type; e.g., applying a socket option to a regular file  will  fail.  To
       catch most useless combinations as early as in the open phase, the con-
       cept of option groups was introduced. Each option  belongs  to  one  or
       more  option  groups.  Options can be used only with address types that
       support at least one of their option groups (but see option -g).

       Address options have data types that their values must conform to.  Ev-
       ery  address option consists of just a keyword or a keyword followed by
       "=value", where value must conform to the options type.   Some  address
       options  manipulate  parameters of system calls; e.g., option sync sets
       the O_SYNC flag with the open() call.  Other options cause a system  or
       library  call; e.g., with option `ttl=value' the setsockopt(fd, SOL_IP,
       IP_TTL, value, sizeof(int)) call is applied.  Other options set  inter-
       nal  socat  variables  that are used during data transfer; e.g., `crnl'
       causes explicit character conversions.  A few options have more complex
       implementations;  e.g., su-d (substuser-delayed) inquires some user and
       group infos, stores them, and applies them later after a  possible  ch-
       root() call.

       If  multiple options are given to an address, their sequence in the ad-
       dress specification has (almost) no effect on the sequence of their ex-
       ecution/application.  Instead, socat has built in an option phase model
       that tries to bring the options in a useful order. Some  options  exist
       in different forms (e.g., unlink, unlink-early, unlink-late) to control
       the time of their execution.

       If the same option is specified more than once within one address spec-
       ification,  with  equal  or different values, the effect depends on the
       kind of option. Options resulting in function calls  like  setsockopt()
       cause  multiple invocations. With options that set parameters for a re-
       quired call like open() or set internal flags, the value  of  the  last
       option occurrence is effective.

       The  existence or semantics of many options are system dependent. Socat
       usually does NOT try to emulate missing libc  or  kernel  features,  it
       just  provides an interface to the underlying system. So, if an operat-
       ing system lacks a feature, the related option is simply not  available
       on this platform.

       The  following  paragraphs  introduce  just the more common address op-
       tions. For a more comprehensive reference and to find information about
       canonical  option  names, alias names, option phases, and platforms see
       file xio.help.

       FD option group

       This option group contains options that are applied  to  a  UN*X  style
       file  descriptor,  no matter how it was generated.  Because all current
       socat address types are file descriptor based, these options may be ap-
       plied to any address.
       Note:  Some  of  these options are also member of another option group,
       that provides another, non-fd based mechanism.  For these  options,  it
       depends  on  the actual address type and its option groups which mecha-
       nism is used. The second, non-fd based mechanism is prioritized.

       cloexec=<bool>
              Sets the FD_CLOEXEC flag with the fcntl() system call  to  value
              <bool>.  If  set, the file descriptor is closed on exec() family
              function calls. Socat internally handles this flag for  the  fds
              it  controls,  so  in  most cases there will be no need to apply
              this option.

       setlk  Tries to set a discretionary write lock to the whole file  using
              the fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, ...)  system call. If the file is already
              locked, this call results in an error.  On Linux, when the  file
              permissions  for group are "S" (g-x,g+s), and the file system is
              locally mounted with the "mand" option, the lock  is  mandatory,
              i.e. prevents other processes from opening the file.

       setlkw Tries  to  set  a  discretionary waiting write lock to the whole
              file using the fcntl(fd, F_SETLKW, ...)   system  call.  If  the
              file  is already locked, this call blocks.  See option setlk for
              information about making this lock mandatory.

       setlk-rd
              Tries to set a discretionary read lock to the whole  file  using
              the fcntl(fd, F_SETLK, ...)  system call. If the file is already
              write locked, this call results in an error.  See  option  setlk
              for information about making this lock mandatory.

       setlkw-rd
              Tries to set a discretionary waiting read lock to the whole file
              using the fcntl(fd, F_SETLKW, ...)  system call. If the file  is
              already  write  locked,  this call blocks.  See option setlk for
              information about making this lock mandatory.

       flock-ex
              Tries to set a blocking exclusive advisory lock to the file  us-
              ing the flock(fd, LOCK_EX) system call. Socat hangs in this call
              if the file is locked by another process.

       flock-ex-nb
              Tries to set a nonblocking exclusive advisory lock to  the  file
              using the flock(fd, LOCK_EX|LOCK_NB) system call. If the file is
              already locked, this option results in an error.

       flock-sh
              Tries to set a blocking shared advisory lock to the  file  using
              the  flock(fd, LOCK_SH) system call. Socat hangs in this call if
              the file is locked by another process.

       flock-sh-nb
              Tries to set a nonblocking shared advisory lock to the file  us-
              ing  the  flock(fd, LOCK_SH|LOCK_NB) system call. If the file is
              already locked, this option results in an error.

       lock   Sets a blocking lock on the file. Uses the setlk or flock mecha-
              nism  depending  on  availability on the particular platform. If
              both are available, the POSIX variant (setlkw) is used.

       user=<user>
              Sets the <user> (owner) of the stream.  If the address is member
              of  the  NAMED  option group, socat uses the chown() system call
              after opening the file or binding  to  the  UNIX  domain  socket
              (race  condition!).   Without  filesystem  entry, socat sets the
              user of the stream using the fchown() system call.  These  calls
              might require root privilege.

       user-late=<user>
              Sets the owner of the fd to <user> with the fchown() system call
              after opening or connecting the channel.  This is useful only on
              file system entries.

       group=<group>
              Sets the <group> of the stream.  If the address is member of the
              NAMED option group, socat uses the  chown()  system  call  after
              opening the file or binding to the UNIX domain socket (race con-
              dition!).  Without filesystem entry, socat sets the group of the
              stream with the fchown() system call.  These calls might require
              group membership or root privilege.

       group-late=<group>
              Sets the group of the fd to <group>  with  the  fchown()  system
              call  after  opening  or connecting the channel.  This is useful
              only on file system entries.

       mode=<mode>
              Sets the <mode> [mode_t] (permissions) of the  stream.   If  the
              address  is member of the NAMED option group and uses the open()
              or creat() call, the mode is applied with these.  If the address
              is  member  of the NAMED option group without using these system
              calls, socat uses the chmod()  system  call  after  opening  the
              filesystem entry or binding to the UNIX domain socket (race con-
              dition!).  Otherwise, socat sets the mode of  the  stream  using
              fchmod()  .   These calls might require ownership or root privi-
              lege.

       perm-late=<mode>
              Sets the permissions of the fd to value  <mode>  [mode_t]  using
              the  fchmod()  system call after opening or connecting the chan-
              nel.  This is useful only on file system entries.

       append=<bool>
              Always writes data to the actual end of file.  If the address is
              member  of  the  OPEN option group, socat uses the O_APPEND flag
              with the open() system call (example).  Otherwise, socat applies
              the fcntl(fd, F_SETFL, O_APPEND) call.

       nonblock=<bool>
              Tries  to open or use file in nonblocking mode. Its only effects
              are that the connect() call of TCP addresses does not block, and
              that  opening  a  named pipe for reading does not block.  If the
              address is member of the  OPEN  option  group,  socat  uses  the
              O_NONBLOCK  flag  with the open() system call.  Otherwise, socat
              applies the fcntl(fd, F_SETFL, O_NONBLOCK) call.

       binary Opens the file in binary mode to avoid implicit line  terminator
              conversions (Cygwin).

       text   Opens  the  file  in text mode to force implicit line terminator
              conversions (Cygwin).

       noinherit
              Does not keep this file open in a spawned process (Cygwin).

       cool-write
              Takes it easy when write fails with EPIPE or ECONNRESET and logs
              the  message  with notice level instead of error.  This prevents
              the log file from being filled with useless error messages  when
              socat is used as a high volume server or proxy where clients of-
              ten abort the connection.
              This option is experimental.

       end-close
              Changes the (address dependent) method of ending a connection to
              just close the file descriptors. This is useful when the connec-
              tion is to be reused by or shared with  other  processes  (exam-
              ple).
              Normally,  socket  connections  will  be  ended with shutdown(2)
              which terminates the socket even if it  is  shared  by  multiple
              processes.   close(2)  "unlinks" the socket from the process but
              keeps it active as long as there are still links from other pro-
              cesses.
              Similarly,  when an address of type EXEC or SYSTEM is ended, so-
              cat usually will explicitly kill the sub process. With this  op-
              tion, it will just close the file descriptors.

       shut-none
              Changes  the  (address  dependent)  method  of shutting down the
              write part of a connection to not do anything.

       shut-down
              Changes the (address dependent)  method  of  shutting  down  the
              write  part  of  a  connection to shutdown(fd, SHUT_WR). Is only
              useful with sockets.

       shut-close
              Changes the (address dependent)  method  of  shutting  down  the
              write part of a connection to close(fd).

       shut-null
              When  one  address  indicates  EOF, socat will send a zero sized
              packet to the write channel of the other address to transfer the
              EOF condition. This is useful with UDP and other datagram proto-
              cols. Has been tested  against  netcat  and  socat  with  option
              null-eof.

       null-eof
              Normally socat will ignore empty (zero size payload) packets ar-
              riving on datagram sockets, so it survives port scans. With this
              option  socat interprets empty datagram packets as EOF indicator
              (see shut-null).

       ioctl-void=<request>
              Calls ioctl() with the request value as second argument and NULL
              as  third argument. This option allows utilizing ioctls that are
              not explicitly implemented in socat.

       ioctl-int=<request>:<value>
              Calls ioctl() with the request value as second argument and  the
              integer value as third argument.

       ioctl-intp=<request>:<value>
              Calls  ioctl()  with  the request value as second argument and a
              pointer to the integer value as third argument.

       ioctl-bin=<request>:<value>
              Calls ioctl() with the request value as second  argument  and  a
              pointer  to  the  given  data value as third argument. This data
              must be specified in <dalan> form.

       ioctl-string=<request>:<value>
              Calls ioctl() with the request value as second  argument  and  a
              pointer to the given string as third argument.  <dalan> form.

       NAMED option group

       These options work on file system entries.
       See also options user, group, and mode.

       user-early=<user>
              Changes  the  <user> (owner) of the file system entry before ac-
              cessing it, using the chown() system call. This call  might  re-
              quire root privilege.

       group-early=<group>
              Changes  the  <group>  of the file system entry before accessing
              it, using the chown() system call. This call might require group
              membership or root privilege.

       perm-early=<mode>
              Changes  the <mode> [mode_t] of the file system entry before ac-
              cessing it, using the chmod() system call. This call  might  re-
              quire ownership or root privilege.

       umask=<mode>
              Sets  the umask of the process to <mode> [mode_t] before access-
              ing the file system entry (useful with  UNIX  domain  sockets!).
              This  call  might  affect  all  further  operations of the socat
              process!

       unlink-early
              Unlinks (removes) the file before opening it and even before ap-
              plying user-early etc.

       unlink Unlinks  (removes)  the  file  before  accessing  it,  but after
              user-early etc.

       unlink-late
              Unlinks (removes) the file after opening it to make it  inacces-
              sible for other processes after a short race condition.

       unlink-close
              Removes  the  addresses  file  system entry when closing the ad-
              dress.  For named pipes, listening unix domain sockets, and  the
              symbolic  links  of pty addresses, the default is 1; for created
              files, opened files, generic opened files, and client  unix  do-
              main sockets the default is 0.

       OPEN option group

       The OPEN group options allow setting flags with the open() system call.
       E.g., option `creat' sets the O_CREAT flag.
       See also options append and nonblock.

       creat=<bool>
              Creates the file if it does not exist (example).

       dsync=<bool>
              Blocks write() calls until metainfo is physically written to me-
              dia.

       excl=<bool>
              With option creat, if file exists this is an error.

       largefile=<bool>
              On 32 bit systems, allows a file larger than 2^31 bytes.

       noatime
              Sets  the  O_NOATIME  options, so reads do not change the access
              timestamp.

       noctty=<bool>
              Does not make this file the controlling terminal.

       nofollow=<bool>
              Does not follow symbolic links.

       nshare=<bool>
              Does not allow sharing this file with other processes.

       rshare=<bool>
              Does not allow other processes to open this file for writing.

       rsync=<bool>
              Blocks write() until metainfo is physically written to media.

       sync=<bool>
              Blocks write() until data is physically written to media.

       rdonly=<bool>
              Opens the file for reading only.

       wronly=<bool>
              Opens the file for writing only.

       trunc  Truncates the file to size 0 during opening it.

       REG and BLK option group

       These options are usually applied to a UN*X file descriptor, but  their
       semantics make sense only on a file supporting random access.

       seek=<offset>
              Applies  the  lseek(fd, <offset>, SEEK_SET) (or lseek64 ) system
              call, thus positioning the file pointer absolutely  to  <offset>
              [off_t or off64_t]. Please note that a missing value defaults to
              1, not 0.

       seek-cur=<offset>
              Applies the lseek(fd, <offset>, SEEK_CUR) (or lseek64  )  system
              call,  thus  positioning  the  file  pointer  <offset> [off_t or
              off64_t] bytes relatively to its current position (which is usu-
              ally 0). Please note that a missing value defaults to 1, not 0.

       seek-end=<offset>
              Applies  the  lseek(fd, <offset>, SEEK_END) (or lseek64 ) system
              call, thus positioning  the  file  pointer  <offset>  [off_t  or
              off64_t]  bytes relatively to the files current end. Please note
              that a missing value defaults to 1, not 0.

       ftruncate=<offset>
              Applies the ftruncate(fd, <offset>) (or  ftruncate64  if  avail-
              able)  system  call,  thus  truncating  the file at the position
              <offset> [off_t or off64_t]. Please note that  a  missing  value
              defaults to 1, not 0.

       secrm=<bool>

       unrm=<bool>

       compr=<bool>

       ext2-sync=<bool>

       immutable=<bool>

       ext2-append=<bool>

       nodump=<bool>

       ext2-noatime=<bool>

       journal-data=<bool>

       notail=<bool>

       dirsync=<bool>
              These  options  change non standard file attributes on operating
              systems and file systems that support these features, like Linux
              with  ext2fs, ext3fs, or reiserfs. See man 1 chattr for informa-
              tion on these options.  Please note that there might be  a  race
              condition between creating the file and applying these options.

       PROCESS option group

       Options of this group change the process properties instead of just af-
       fecting one data channel.  For EXEC and SYSTEM addresses and for LISTEN
       and CONNECT type addresses with option FORK, these options apply to the
       child processes instead of the main socat process.

       chroot=<directory>
              Performs a chroot() operation to  <directory>  after  processing
              the address (example). This call might require root privilege.

       chroot-early=<directory>
              Performs  a chroot() operation to <directory> before opening the
              address. This call might require root privilege.

       setgid=<group>
              Changes the primary <group> of the process after processing  the
              address.  This  call  might  require root privilege. Please note
              that this option does not drop other group related privileges.

       setgid-early=<group>
              Like setgit but is performed before opening the address.

       setuid=<user>
              Changes the <user> (owner) of the process after  processing  the
              address.  This  call  might  require root privilege. Please note
              that this option does not drop group related  privileges.  Check
              if option su better fits your needs.

       setuid-early=<user>
              Like setuid but is performed before opening the address.

       su=<user>
              Changes  the <user> (owner) and groups of the process after pro-
              cessing the address (example).  This  call  might  require  root
              privilege.

       su-d=<user>
              Short  name  for  substuser-delayed.  Changes the <user> (owner)
              and groups of the process after processing  the  address  (exam-
              ple).   The  user and his groups are retrieved before a possible
              chroot() . This call might require root privilege.

       setpgid=<pid_t>
              Makes the process  a  member  of  the  specified  process  group
              <pid_t>.  If  no  value is given, or if the value is 0 or 1, the
              process becomes leader of a new process group.

       setsid Makes the process the leader of a new session (example).

       READLINE option group

       Due to licensing restrictions the readline feature is disabled  in  De-
       bian (see BUGS).
       These options apply to the readline address type.

       history=<filename>
              Reads and writes history from/to <filename> (example).

       noprompt
              Since  version  1.4.0,  socat  per  default tries to determine a
              prompt - that is then passed to the readline call - by remember-
              ing  the  last  incomplete line of the output. With this option,
              socat does not pass a prompt to  readline,  so  it  begins  line
              editing in the first column of the terminal.

       noecho=<pattern>
              Specifies  a regular pattern for a prompt that prevents the fol-
              lowing input line from being displayed on the  screen  and  from
              being  added  to the history.  The prompt is defined as the text
              that was output to the readline address after the  lastest  new-
              line character and before an input character was typed. The pat-
              tern  is  a  regular  expression,  e.g.   "^[Pp]assword:.*$"  or
              "([Uu]ser:|[Pp]assword:)". See regex(7) for details.  (example)

       prompt=<string>
              Passes  the  string as prompt to the readline function. readline
              prints this prompt when stepping through the  history.  If  this
              string  matches  a constant prompt issued by an interactive pro-
              gram on the other socat address, consistent look and feel can be
              achieved.

       APPLICATION option group

       This  group  contains options that work at data level.  Note that these
       options only apply to the "raw" data transferred by socat, but  not  to
       protocol data used by addresses like PROXY.

       cr     Converts  the default line termination character NL ('\n', 0x0a)
              to/from CR ('\r', 0x0d) when writing/reading on this channel.

       crnl   Converts the default line termination character NL ('\n',  0x0a)
              to/from CRNL ("\r\n", 0x0d0a) when writing/reading on this chan-
              nel (example).  Note: socat simply strips all CR characters.

       ignoreeof
              When EOF occurs on this channel, socat ignores it and  tries  to
              read more data (like "tail -f") (example).

       readbytes=<bytes>
              socat  reads  only  so many bytes from this address (the address
              provides only so many bytes for transfer and pretends to  be  at
              EOF afterwards).  Must be greater than 0.

       lockfile=<filename>
              If  lockfile  exists, exits with error. If lockfile does not ex-
              ist, creates it and continues, unlinks lockfile on exit.

       waitlock=<filename>
              If lockfile exists, waits until  it  disappears.  When  lockfile
              does  not  exist,  creates it and continues, unlinks lockfile on
              exit.

       escape=<int>
              Specifies the numeric code of a character that triggers  EOF  on
              the  input stream. It is useful with a terminal in raw mode (ex-
              ample).

       SOCKET option group

       These options are intended for all kinds of sockets, e.g.  IP  or  UNIX
       domain. Most are applied with a setsockopt() call.

       bind=<sockname>
              Binds  the  socket  to the given socket address using the bind()
              system call. The form of <sockname> is socket domain  dependent:
              IP4   and   IP6  allow  the  form  [hostname|hostaddress][:(ser-
              vice|port)] (example), UNIX domain sockets require <filename>.

       connect-timeout=<seconds>
              Abort the connection attempt after <seconds> [timeval] with  er-
              ror status.

       so-bindtodevice=<interface>
              Binds  the  socket  to the given <interface>.  This option might
              require root privilege.

       broadcast
              For datagram sockets, allows sending to broadcast addresses  and
              receiving packets addressed to broadcast addresses.

       debug  Enables socket debugging.

       dontroute
              Only  communicates  with  directly connected peers, does not use
              routers.

       keepalive
              Enables sending keepalives on the socket.

       linger=<seconds>
              Blocks shutdown() or close() until data transfers have  finished
              or the given timeout [int] expired.

       oobinline
              Places out-of-band data in the input data stream.

       priority=<priority>
              Sets  the protocol defined <priority> [<int>] for outgoing pack-
              ets.

       rcvbuf=<bytes>
              Sets the size of the receive buffer after the socket()  call  to
              <bytes>  [int].  With TCP sockets, this value corresponds to the
              socket's maximal window size.

       rcvbuf-late=<bytes>
              Sets the size of the receive buffer when the socket  is  already
              connected to <bytes> [int].  With TCP sockets, this value corre-
              sponds to the socket's maximal window size.

       rcvlowat=<bytes>
              Specifies the minimum number of received bytes [int]  until  the
              socket layer will pass the buffered data to socat.

       reuseaddr
              Allows  other  sockets to bind to an address even if parts of it
              (e.g. the local port) are already in use by socat (example).

       sndbuf=<bytes>
              Sets the size of the send buffer  after  the  socket()  call  to
              <bytes> [int].

       sndbuf-late=<bytes>
              Sets the size of the send buffer when the socket is connected to
              <bytes> [int].

       sndlowat=<bytes>
              Specifies the minimum number of bytes in the send  buffer  until
              the socket layer will send the data to <bytes> [int].

       pf=<string>
              Forces the use of the specified IP version or protocol. <string>
              can be something like "ip4" or "ip6".  The  resulting  value  is
              used  as  first  argument to the socket() or socketpair() calls.
              This option affects address resolution and the  required  syntax
              of bind and range options.

       type=<type>
              Sets the type of the socket, specified as second argument to the
              socket() or socketpair() calls, to <type> [int]. Address resolu-
              tion  is  not  affected  by  this  option.  Under Linux, 1 means
              stream oriented socket, 2 means datagram socket, and 3 means raw
              socket.

       prototype
              Sets  the protocol of the socket, specified as third argument to
              the socket() or socketpair() calls, to  <prototype>  [int].  Ad-
              dress  resolution  is not affected by this option.  6 means TCP,
              17 means UDP.

       reuseport
              Set the SO_REUSEPORT socket option.

       so-timestamp
              Sets the SO_TIMESTAMP socket option. This enables receiving  and
              logging of timestamp ancillary messages.

       setsockopt-int=<level>:<optname>:<optval>
              Invokes  setsockopt()  for the socket with the given parameters.
              level [int] is used as second argument to setsockopt() and spec-
              ifies  the  layer,  e.g.  SOL_TCP  for  TCP  (6  on  Linux),  or
              SOL_SOCKET for the socket layer (1 on Linux). optname  [int]  is
              the third argument to setsockopt() and tells which socket option
              is to be set. For the actual numbers you might have to  look  up
              the  appropriate  include files of your system. The 4th setsock-
              opt() parameter, value [int], is  passed  to  the  function  per
              pointer,  and  for the length parameter sizeof(int) is taken im-
              plicitely.

       setsockopt-bin=<level>:<optname>:<optval>
              Like setsockopt-int, but <optval> must be provided in dalan for-
              mat and specifies an arbitrary sequence of bytes; the length pa-
              rameter is automatically derived from the data.

       setsockopt-string=<level>:<optname>:<optval>
              Like setsockopt-int, but <optval> must be a string.  This string
              is  passed to the function with trailing null character, and the
              length parameter is automatically derived from the data.

       UNIX option group

       These options apply to UNIX domain based addresses.

       unix-tightsocklen=[0|1]
              On socket operations, pass a socket address length that does not
              include  the  whole struct sockaddr_un record but (besides other
              components) only the relevant part of the filename  or  abstract
              string. Default is 1.

       IP4 and IP6 option groups

       These options can be used with IPv4 and IPv6 based sockets.

       tos=<tos>
              Sets  the  TOS  (type  of  service) field of outgoing packets to
              <tos> [byte] (see RFC 791).

       ttl=<ttl>
              Sets the TTL (time to live) field of outgoing packets  to  <ttl>
              [byte].

       ip-options=<data>
              Sets  IP  options  like  source routing. Must be given in binary
              form, recommended format is a leading "x" followed  by  an  even
              number  of  hex  digits. This option may be used multiple times,
              data are appended.  E.g., to connect to host 10.0.0.1  via  some
              gateway  using  a loose source route, use the gateway as address
              parameter and set a loose source route using the  option  ip-op-
              tions=x8307040a000001 .
              IP options are defined in RFC 791.

       mtudiscover=<0|1|2>
              Takes 0, 1, 2 to never, want, or always use path MTU discover on
              this socket.

       ip-pktinfo
              Sets the IP_PKTINFO socket option. This  enables  receiving  and
              logging of ancillary messages containing destination address and
              interface (Linux) (example).

       ip-recverr
              Sets the IP_RECVERR socket option. This  enables  receiving  and
              logging of ancillary messages containing detailed error informa-
              tion.

       ip-recvopts
              Sets the IP_RECVOPTS socket option. This enables  receiving  and
              logging of IP options ancillary messages (Linux, *BSD).

       ip-recvtos
              Sets  the  IP_RECVTOS  socket option. This enables receiving and
              logging of TOS (type of service) ancillary messages (Linux).

       ip-recvttl
              Sets the IP_RECVTTL socket option. This  enables  receiving  and
              logging of TTL (time to live) ancillary messages (Linux, *BSD).

       ip-recvdstaddr
              Sets  the  IP_RECVDSTADDR  socket option. This enables receiving
              and logging of ancillary messages containing destination address
              (*BSD) (example).

       ip-recvif
              Sets  the  IP_RECVIF  socket  option. This enables receiving and
              logging of interface ancillary messages (*BSD) (example).

       ip-add-membership=<multicast-address:interface-address>

       ip-add-membership=<multicast-address:interface-name>

       ip-add-membership=<multicast-address:interface-index>

       ip-add-membership=<multicast-address:interface-address:interface-name>

       ip-add-membership=<multicast-address:interface-address:interface-index>
              Makes the socket member of the specified multicast  group.  This
              is  currently only implemented for IPv4. The option takes the IP
              address of the multicast group and info about the  desired  net-
              work  interface.  The most common syntax is the first one, while
              the others are only available on  systems  that  provide  struct
              mreqn (Linux).
              The  indices of active network interfaces can be shown using the
              utility procan.

       ip-multicast-if=<hostname>
              Specifies hostname or address of the  network  interface  to  be
              used for multicast traffic.

       ip-multicast-loop=<bool>
              Specifies  if outgoing multicast traffic should loop back to the
              interface.

       ip-multicast-ttl=<byte>
              Sets the TTL used for outgoing multicast traffic. Default is 1.

       res-debug

       res-aaonly

       res-usevc

       res-primary

       res-igntc

       res-recurse

       res-defnames

       res-stayopen

       res-dnsrch
              These options set the corresponding resolver  (name  resolution)
              option  flags.   Append  "=0" to clear a default option. See man
              resolver(5) for more information on these options.  Note:  these
              options are valid only for the address they are applied to.

       IP6 option group

       These  options  can  only be used on IPv6 based sockets. See IP options
       for options that can be applied to both IPv4 and IPv6 sockets.

       ipv6only=<bool>
              Sets the IPV6_V6ONLY socket option. If 0,  the  TCP  stack  will
              also  accept  connections  using IPv4 protocol on the same port.
              The default is system dependent.

       ipv6-recvdstopts
              Sets the IPV6_RECVDSTOPTS socket option. This enables  receiving
              and logging of ancillary messages containing the destination op-
              tions.

       ipv6-recvhoplimit
              Sets the IPV6_RECVHOPLIMIT socket option. This enables receiving
              and logging of ancillary messages containing the hoplimit.

       ipv6-recvhopopts
              Sets  the IPV6_RECVHOPOPTS socket option. This enables receiving
              and logging of ancillary messages containing the hop options.

       ipv6-recvpktinfo
              Sets the IPV6_RECVPKTINFO socket option. This enables  receiving
              and logging of ancillary messages containing destination address
              and interface.

       ipv6-unicast-hops=link(TYPE_INT)(<int>)
              Sets the IPV6_UNICAST_HOPS socket  option.  This  sets  the  hop
              count limit (TTL) for outgoing unicast packets.

       ipv6-recvrthdr
              Sets  the  IPV6_RECVRTHDR  socket option. This enables receiving
              and logging of ancillary messages  containing  routing  informa-
              tion.

       ipv6-tclass
              Sets the IPV6_TCLASS socket option. This sets the transfer class
              of outgoing packets.

       ipv6-recvtclass
              Sets the IPV6_RECVTCLASS socket option. This  enables  receiving
              and logging of ancillary messages containing the transfer class.

       TCP option group

       These options may be applied to TCP sockets. They work by invoking set-
       sockopt() with the appropriate parameters.

       cork   Doesn't send packets smaller than MSS (maximal segment size).

       defer-accept
              While listening, accepts connections only  when  data  from  the
              peer arrived.

       keepcnt=<count>
              Sets the number of keepalives before shutting down the socket to
              <count> [int].

       keepidle=<seconds>
              Sets the idle time before sending the first keepalive  to  <sec-
              onds> [int].

       keepintvl=<seconds>
              Sets the interval between two keepalives to <seconds> [int].

       linger2=<seconds>
              Sets  the  time  to keep the socket in FIN-WAIT-2 state to <sec-
              onds> [int].

       mss=<bytes>
              Sets the MSS (maximum segment size) after the socket()  call  to
              <bytes>  [int]. This value is then proposed to the peer with the
              SYN or SYN/ACK packet (example).

       mss-late=<bytes>
              Sets the MSS of the socket after connection has been established
              to <bytes> [int].

       nodelay
              Turns  off the Nagle algorithm for measuring the RTT (round trip
              time).

       rfc1323
              Enables RFC1323 TCP options: TCP window scale,  round-trip  time
              measurement (RTTM), and protect against wrapped sequence numbers
              (PAWS) (AIX).

       stdurg Enables RFC1122 compliant urgent pointer handling (AIX).

       syncnt=<count>
              Sets the maximal number of SYN  retransmits  during  connect  to
              <count> [int].

       md5sig Enables generation of MD5 digests on the packets (FreeBSD).

       noopt  Disables use of TCP options (FreeBSD, MacOSX).

       nopush sets the TCP_NOPUSH socket option (FreeBSD, MacOSX).

       sack-disable
              Disables use the selective acknowledge feature (OpenBSD).

       signature-enable
              Enables generation of MD5 digests on the packets (OpenBSD).

       abort-threshold=<milliseconds>
              Sets  the  time  to  wait for an answer of the peer on an estab-
              lished connection (HP-UX).

       conn-abort-threshold=<milliseconds>
              Sets the time to wait for an answer of  the  server  during  the
              initial connect (HP-UX).

       keepinit
              Sets  the  time  to wait for an answer of the server during con-
              nect() before giving up. Value in half seconds, default  is  150
              (75s) (Tru64).

       paws   Enables  the  "protect against wrapped sequence numbers" feature
              (Tru64).

       sackena
              Enables selective acknowledge (Tru64).

       tsoptena
              Enables the time stamp option that allows RTT  recalculation  on
              existing connections (Tru64).

       SCTP option group

       These options may be applied to SCTP stream sockets.

       sctp-nodelay
              Sets  the SCTP_NODELAY socket option that disables the Nagle al-
              gorithm.

       sctp-maxseg=<bytes>
              Sets the SCTP_MAXSEG socket option to <bytes> [int].  This value
              is then proposed to the peer with the SYN or SYN/ACK packet.

       UDP, TCP, and SCTP option groups

       Here we find options that are related to the network port mechanism and
       thus can be used with UDP, TCP, and SCTP client and server addresses.

       sourceport=<port>
              For outgoing (client) TCP  and  UDP  connections,  it  sets  the
              source  <port> using an extra bind() call.  With TCP or UDP lis-
              ten addresses, socat immediately shuts down  the  connection  if
              the client does not use this sourceport (example).

       lowport
              Outgoing  (client)  TCP and UDP connections with this option use
              an unused random source port between 640 and 1023 incl. On  UNIX
              class  operating systems, this requires root privilege, and thus
              indicates that the client process is authorized by  local  root.
              TCP  and  UDP listen addresses with this option immediately shut
              down the connection if the client does not use a  sourceport  <=
              1023.   This  mechanism  can provide limited authorization under
              some circumstances.

       SOCKS option group

       When using SOCKS type addresses, some socks  specific  options  can  be
       set.

       socksport=<tcp service>
              Overrides the default "socks" service or port 1080 for the socks
              server port with <TCP service>.

       socksuser=<user>
              Sends the <user> [string] in the username  field  to  the  socks
              server. Default is the actual user name ($LOGNAME or $USER) (ex-
              ample).

       HTTP option group

       Options that can be provided with HTTP type addresses.  The  only  HTTP
       address currently implemented is proxy-connect.

       proxyport=<TCP service>
              Overrides the default HTTP proxy port 8080 with <TCP service>.

       ignorecr
              The  HTTP protocol requires the use of CR+NL as line terminator.
              When a proxy server violates this standard, socat might not  un-
              derstand its answer.  This option directs socat to interprete NL
              as line terminator and to ignore CR in the answer. Nevertheless,
              socat sends CR+NL to the proxy.

       proxyauth=<username>:<password>
              Provide "basic" authentication to the proxy server. The argument
              to the option is used with a "Proxy-Authorization: Base"  header
              in base64 encoded form.
              Note:  username  and  password are visible for every user on the
              local machine in the process list;  username  and  password  are
              transferred to the proxy server unencrypted (base64 encoded) and
              might be sniffed.

       resolve
              Per default, socat sends to the proxy a CONNECT request contain-
              ing  the  target  hostname. With this option, socat resolves the
              hostname locally and sends the IP address. Please note that, ac-
              cording  to  RFC 2396, only name resolution to IPv4 addresses is
              implemented.

       RANGE option group

       These options check if a connecting client should  be  granted  access.
       They  can  be  applied  to  listening  and  receiving  network sockets.
       tcp-wrappers options fall into this group.

       range=<address-range>
              After accepting a connection, tests if the peer is within range.
              For  IPv4  addresses, address-range takes the form address/bits,
              e.g.  10.0.0.0/8, or address:mask, e.g. 10.0.0.0:255.0.0.0  (ex-
              ample);  for IPv6, it is [ip6-address]/bits, e.g. [::1]/128.  If
              the client address does not match, socat refuses the  connection
              attempt, issues a warning, and keeps listening/receiving.

       tcpwrap[=<name>]
              Uses  Wietse Venema's libwrap (tcpd) library to determine if the
              client is  allowed  to  connect.  The  configuration  files  are
              /etc/hosts.allow  and  /etc/hosts.deny  per  default, see "man 5
              hosts_access" for more information. The  optional  <name>  (type
              string)  is  passed  to  the wrapper functions as daemon process
              name (example).  If omitted, the basename of  socats  invocation
              (argv[0])  is passed.  If both tcpwrap and range options are ap-
              plied to an address, both conditions must be fulfilled to  allow
              the connection.

       allow-table=<filename>
              Takes the specified file instead of /etc/hosts.allow.

       deny-table=<filename>
              Takes the specified file instead of /etc/hosts.deny.

       tcpwrap-etc=<directoryname>
              Looks for hosts.allow and hosts.deny in the specified directory.
              Is overridden by options hosts-allow and hosts-deny.

       LISTEN option group

       Options specific to listening sockets.

       backlog=<count>
              Sets the backlog value passed with the listen() system  call  to
              <count> [int]. Default is 5.

       max-children=<count>
              Limits  the number of concurrent child processes [int].  Default
              is no limit.

       CHILD option group

       Options for addresses with multiple connections via child processes.

       fork   After establishing a connection, handles its channel in a  child
              process  and keeps the parent process attempting to produce more
              connections, either by listening or by connecting in a loop (ex-
              ample).
              OPENSSL-CONNECT  and OPENSSL-LISTEN differ in when they actually
              fork off the child: OPENSSL-LISTEN forks before  the  SSL  hand-
              shake,  while  OPENSSL-CONNECT forks afterwards.  RETRY and FOR-
              EVER options are not inherited by the child process.
              On some operating systems (e.g. FreeBSD) this  option  does  not
              work for UDP-LISTEN addresses.

       EXEC option group

       Options for addresses that invoke a program.

       path=<string>
              Overrides  the  PATH environment variable for searching the pro-
              gram with <string>. This $PATH value is effective in  the  child
              process too.

       login  Prefixes  argv[0]  for the execvp() call with '-', thus making a
              shell behave as login shell.

       FORK option group

       EXEC or SYSTEM addresses invoke a program using  a  child  process  and
       transfer  data between socat and the program. The interprocess communi-
       cation mechanism can be influenced with the following options. Per  de-
       fault,  a  socketpair()  is created and assigned to stdin and stdout of
       the child process, while stderr is inherited from  the  socat  process,
       and  the  child process uses file descriptors 0 and 1 for communicating
       with the main socat process.

       nofork Does not fork a subprocess for executing  the  program,  instead
              calls  execvp()  or  system() directly from the actual socat in-
              stance. This avoids the overhead of another process between  the
              program and its peer, but introduces a lot of restrictions:

       o      this option can only be applied to the second socat address.

       o      it cannot be applied to a part of a dual address.

       o      the first socat address cannot be OPENSSL or READLINE

       o      socat options -b, -t, -D, -l, -v, -x become useless

       o      for  both addresses, options ignoreeof, cr, and crnl become use-
              less

       o      for the second address (the one with option nofork), options ap-
              pend,   cloexec,  flock, user, group, mode, nonblock, perm-late,
              setlk, and setpgid cannot be applied. Some  of  these  could  be
              used on the first address though.

       pipes  Creates  a  pair of unnamed pipes for interprocess communication
              instead of a socket pair.

       openpty
              Establishes communication with the sub process  using  a  pseudo
              terminal  created with openpty() instead of the default (socket-
              pair or ptmx).

       ptmx   Establishes communication with the sub process  using  a  pseudo
              terminal created by opening /dev/ptmx or /dev/ptc instead of the
              default (socketpair).

       pty    Establishes communication with the sub process  using  a  pseudo
              terminal  instead  of  a  socket  pair.  Creates the pty with an
              available mechanism. If openpty and ptmx are both available,  it
              uses ptmx because this is POSIX compliant (example).

       ctty   Makes the pty the controlling tty of the sub process (example).

       stderr Directs  stderr of the sub process to its output channel by mak-
              ing stderr a dup() of stdout (example).

       fdin=<fdnum>
              Assigns the sub processes input channel to its  file  descriptor
              <fdnum>  instead of stdin (0). The program started from the sub-
              process has to use this fd for reading data  from  socat  (exam-
              ple).

       fdout=<fdnum>
              Assigns  the sub processes output channel to its file descriptor
              <fdnum> instead of stdout (1). The program started from the sub-
              process has to use this fd for writing data to socat (example).

       sighup, sigint, sigquit
              Has  socat  pass signals of this type to the sub process.  If no
              address has this option, socat terminates on these signals.

       TERMIOS option group

       For  addresses  that  work  on  a  tty  (e.g.,  stdio,   file:/dev/tty,
       exec:...,pty),  the  terminal  parameters  defined  in the UN*X termios
       mechanism are made available as address option parameters.  Please note
       that  changes of the parameters of your interactive terminal remain ef-
       fective after socat's termination, so you might have to  enter  "reset"
       or "stty sane" in your shell afterwards.  For EXEC and SYSTEM addresses
       with option PTY, these options apply to the pty by the child processes.

       b0     Disconnects the terminal.

       b19200 Sets the serial line speed to 19200 baud. Some other  rates  are
              possible;  use  something like socat -hh |grep ' b[1-9]' to find
              all speeds supported by your implementation.
              Note: On some operating systems, these options may not be avail-
              able. Use ispeed or ospeed instead.

       echo=<bool>
              Enables or disables local echo.

       icanon=<bool>
              Sets  or clears canonical mode, enabling line buffering and some
              special characters.

       raw    Sets raw mode, thus passing input and output almost unprocessed.
              This option is obsolete, use option rawer or cfmakeraw instead.

       rawer  Makes  terminal  rawer  than  raw option. This option implicitly
              turns off echo. (example).

       cfmakeraw
              Sets raw mode by invoking  cfmakeraw()  or  by  simulating  this
              call. This option implicitly turns off echo.

       ignbrk=<bool>
              Ignores or interpretes the BREAK character (e.g., ^C)

       brkint=<bool>

       bs0

       bs1

       bsdly=<0|1>

       clocal=<bool>

       cr0
       cr1
       cr2
       cr3

              Sets  the  carriage return delay to 0, 1, 2, or 3, respectively.
              0 means no delay, the other values are terminal dependent.

       crdly=<0|1|2|3>

       cread=<bool>

       crtscts=<bool>

       cs5
       cs6
       cs7
       cs8

              Sets the character size to 5, 6, 7, or 8 bits, respectively.

       csize=<0|1|2|3>

       cstopb=<bool>
              Sets two stop bits, rather than one.

       dsusp=<byte>
              Sets the value for the VDSUSP character that suspends  the  cur-
              rent  foreground  process  and reactivates the shell (all except
              Linux).

       echoctl=<bool>
              Echos control characters in hat notation (e.g. ^A)

       echoe=<bool>

       echok=<bool>

       echoke=<bool>

       echonl=<bool>

       echoprt=<bool>

       eof=<byte>

       eol=<byte>

       eol2=<byte>

       erase=<byte>

       discard=<byte>

       ff0

       ff1

       ffdly=<bool>

       flusho=<bool>

       hupcl=<bool>

       icrnl=<bool>

       iexten=<bool>

       igncr=<bool>

       ignpar=<bool>

       imaxbel=<bool>

       inlcr=<bool>

       inpck=<bool>

       intr=<byte>

       isig=<bool>

       ispeed=<unsigned-int>
              Set the baud rate for incoming data on this line.
              See also: ospeed, b19200

       istrip=<bool>

       iuclc=<bool>

       ixany=<bool>

       ixoff=<bool>

       ixon=<bool>

       kill=<byte>

       lnext=<byte>

       min=<byte>

       nl0    Sets the newline delay to 0.

       nl1

       nldly=<bool>

       noflsh=<bool>

       ocrnl=<bool>

       ofdel=<bool>

       ofill=<bool>

       olcuc=<bool>

       onlcr=<bool>

       onlret=<bool>

       onocr=<bool>

       opost=<bool>
              Enables or disables output  processing;  e.g.,  converts  NL  to
              CR-NL.

       ospeed=<unsigned-int>
              Set the baud rate for outgoing data on this line.
              See also: ispeed, b19200

       parenb=<bool>
              Enable  parity  generation on output and parity checking for in-
              put.

       parmrk=<bool>

       parodd=<bool>

       pendin=<bool>

       quit=<byte>

       reprint=<byte>

       sane   Brings the terminal to something like a useful default state.

       start=<byte>

       stop=<byte>

       susp=<byte>

       swtc=<byte>

       tab0

       tab1

       tab2

       tab3

       tabdly=<unsigned-int>

       time=<byte>

       tostop=<bool>

       vt0

       vt1

       vtdly=<bool>

       werase=<byte>

       xcase=<bool>

       xtabs

       i-pop-all
              With UNIX System V STREAMS, removes all drivers from the stack.

       i-push=<string>
              With UNIX System V STREAMS, pushes the driver (module) with  the
              given  name  (string)  onto the stack. For example, to make sure
              that a character device on Solaris supports termios etc, use the
              following                                               options:
              i-pop-all,i-push=ptem,i-push=ldterm,i-push=ttcompat

       PTY option group

       These options are intended for use with the pty address type.

       link=<filename>
              Generates a symbolic link that points to the actual pseudo  ter-
              minal  (pty). This might help to solve the problem that ptys are
              generated with more or less unpredictable names, making it  dif-
              ficult to directly access the socat generated pty automatically.
              With this option, the user can specify a "fix" point in the file
              hierarchy  that  helps  him  to access the actual pty (example).
              Beginning with socat version 1.4.3, the symbolic link is removed
              when the address is closed (but see option unlink-close).

       wait-slave
              Blocks  the  open  phase until a process opens the slave side of
              the pty.  Usually, socat continues after generating the pty with
              opening  the  next  address  or with entering the transfer loop.
              With the wait-slave option, socat waits until some process opens
              the  slave  side of the pty before continuing.  This option only
              works if the operating system provides the poll()  system  call.
              And it depends on an undocumented behaviour of pty's, so it does
              not work on all operating  systems.  It  has  successfully  been
              tested on Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and on Tru64 with openpty.

       pty-interval=<seconds>
              When the wait-slave option is set, socat periodically checks the
              HUP condition using poll() to find if the pty's slave  side  has
              been opened. The default polling interval is 1s. Use the pty-in-
              terval option [timeval] to change this value.

       OPENSSL option group

       These options apply to the openssl and openssl-listen address types.

       cipher=<cipherlist>
              Selects the list of ciphers that may be used for the connection.
              See  the  man  page of ciphers , section CIPHER LIST FORMAT, for
              detailed information about syntax, values, and default  of  <ci-
              pherlist>.
              Several  cipher  strings  may  be given, separated by ':'.  Some
              simple cipher strings:

       3DES   Uses a cipher suite with triple DES.

       MD5    Uses a cipher suite with MD5.

       aNULL  Uses a cipher suite without authentication.

       NULL   Does not use encryption.

       HIGH   Uses a cipher suite with "high" encryption.  Note that the  peer
              must  support  the  selected  property,  or the negotiation will
              fail.

       method=<ssl-method>
              This option is based on deprecated functions and is only  avail-
              able  when  socat  was  build with option --with-openssl-method.
              Sets the protocol version to be used. Valid  strings  (not  case
              sensitive) are:

       SSL2   Select SSL protocol version 2.

       SSL3   Select SSL protocol version 3.

       SSL23  Select the best available SSL or TLS protocol.

       TLS1   Select TLS protocol version 1.

       TLS1.1 Select TLS protocol version 1.1.

       TLS1.2 Select  TLS  protocol version 1.2.  When this option is not pro-
              vided OpenSSL negotiates the mothod with its peer.

       verify=<bool>
              Controls check of the peer's certificate. Default is  1  (true).
              Disabling verify might open your socket for everyone, making the
              encryption useless!

       cert=<filename>
              Specifies the file with the certificate and private key for  au-
              thentication.    The  certificate  must  be  in  OpenSSL  format
              (*.pem).  With openssl-listen, use of this  option  is  strongly
              recommended. Except with cipher aNULL, "no shared ciphers" error
              will occur when no certificate is given.

       key=<filename>
              Specifies the file with the private key. The private key may  be
              in  this  file  or  in  the file given with the cert option. The
              party that has to proof that it is the owner  of  a  certificate
              needs the private key.

       dhparams=<filename>
              Specifies the file with the Diffie Hellman parameters. These pa-
              rameters may also be in the file given with the cert  option  in
              which case the dhparams option is not needed.

       cafile=<filename>
              Specifies  the  file  with the trusted (root) authority certifi-
              cates. The file must be in PEM format and should contain one  or
              more  certificates.  The party that checks the authentication of
              its peer trusts only certificates that are in this file.

       capath=<dirname>
              Specifies the directory with the  trusted  (root)  certificates.
              The  directory must contain certificates in PEM format and their
              hashes (see OpenSSL documentation)

       egd=<filename>
              On some systems, openssl requires an explicit source  of  random
              data.  Specify the socket name where an entropy gathering daemon
              like egd provides random data, e.g. /dev/egd-pool.

       pseudo On systems where openssl cannot find an entropy source and where
              no  entropy  gathering daemon can be utilized, this option acti-
              vates a mechanism for providing pseudo entropy. This is achieved
              by  taking the current time in microseconds for feeding the libc
              pseudo random number generator with an initial value. openssl is
              then feeded with output from random() calls.
              NOTE:This  mechanism  is not sufficient for generation of secure
              keys!

       compress
              Enable or disable the use of compression for a connection.  Set-
              ting  this  to "none" disables compression, setting it to "auto"
              lets OpenSSL choose the best available  algorithm  supported  by
              both  parties.  The  default is to not touch any compression-re-
              lated settings.  NOTE: Requires OpenSSL 0.9.8 or higher and dis-
              abling  compression  with  OpenSSL 0.9.8 affects all new connec-
              tions in the process.

       commonname=<string>
              Specify the commonname that the  peer  certificate  must  match.
              With  OPENSSL-CONNECT  address this overrides the given hostname
              or IP target address; with OPENSSL-LISTEN this turns on check of
              peer  certificates commonname. This option has only meaning when
              option verify is not disabled and the chosen cipher  provides  a
              peer certificate.

       fips   Enables  FIPS  mode  if compiled in. For info about the FIPS en-
              cryption   implementation   standard    see    http://oss-insti-
              tute.org/fips-faq.html.   This  mode  might require that the in-
              volved certificates are generated with a FIPS enabled version of
              openssl.  Setting  or  clearing this option on one socat address
              affects all OpenSSL addresses of this process.

       RETRY option group

       Options that control retry of some system calls, especially  connection
       attempts.

       retry=<num>
              Number  of  retries  before  the connection or listen attempt is
              aborted.  Default is 0, which means just one attempt.

       interval=<timespec>
              Time between consecutive attempts (seconds, [timespec]). Default
              is 1 second.

       forever
              Performs an unlimited number of retry attempts.

       TUN option group

       Options that control Linux TUN/TAP interface device addresses.

       tun-device=<device-file>
              Instructs  socat  to take another path for the TUN clone device.
              Default is /dev/net/tun.

       tun-name=<if-name>
              Gives the resulting network interface a specific name instead of
              the system generated (tun0, tun1, etc.)

       tun-type=[tun|tap]
              Sets  the  type of the TUN device; use this option to generate a
              TAP device. See the Linux docu for the difference between  these
              types.   When  you try to establish a tunnel between two TUN de-
              vices, their types should be the same.

       iff-no-pi
              Sets the IFF_NO_PI flag which controls if  the  device  includes
              additional  packet  information  in the tunnel.  When you try to
              establish a tunnel between two TUN devices, these  flags  should
              have the same values.

       iff-up Sets the TUN network interface status UP. Strongly recommended.

       iff-broadcast
              Sets the BROADCAST flag of the TUN network interface.

       iff-debug
              Sets the DEBUG flag of the TUN network interface.

       iff-loopback
              Sets the LOOPBACK flag of the TUN network interface.

       iff-pointopoint
              Sets the POINTOPOINT flag of the TUN device.

       iff-notrailers
              Sets the NOTRAILERS flag of the TUN device.

       iff-running
              Sets the RUNNING flag of the TUN device.

       iff-noarp
              Sets the NOARP flag of the TUN device.

       iff-promisc
              Sets the PROMISC flag of the TUN device.

       iff-allmulti
              Sets the ALLMULTI flag of the TUN device.

       iff-master
              Sets the MASTER flag of the TUN device.

       iff-slave
              Sets the SLAVE flag of the TUN device.

       iff-multicast
              Sets the MULTICAST flag of the TUN device.

       iff-portsel
              Sets the PORTSEL flag of the TUN device.

       iff-automedia
              Sets the AUTOMEDIA flag of the TUN device.

       iff-dynamic
              Sets the DYNAMIC flag of the TUN device.

DATA VALUES
       This  section explains the different data types that address parameters
       and address options can take.

       address-range
              Is currently only implemented for IPv4 and IPv6. See address-op-
              tion `range'

       bool   "0" or "1"; if value is omitted, "1" is taken.

       byte   An  unsigned int number, read with strtoul() , lower or equal to
              UCHAR_MAX .

       command-line
              A string specifying a program name and its arguments,  separated
              by single spaces.

       data   A  raw  data specification following dalan syntax. Currently the
              only valid form is a string starting with  'x'  followed  by  an
              even number of hex digits, specifying a sequence of bytes.

       directory
              A string with usual UN*X directory name semantics.

       facility
              The name of a syslog facility in lower case characters.

       fdnum  An  unsigned  int  type, read with strtoul() , specifying a UN*X
              file descriptor.

       filename
              A string with usual UN*X filename semantics.

       group  If the first character is a decimal digit,  the  value  is  read
              with strtoul() as unsigned integer specifying a group id. Other-
              wise, it must be an existing group name.

       int    A number following the rules of the strtol() function with  base
              "0",  i.e.  decimal  number,  octal  number with leading "0", or
              hexadecimal number with leading "0x". The value must fit into  a
              C int.

       interface
              A  string  specifying  the device name of a network interface as
              shown by ifconfig or procan, e.g. "eth0".

       IP address
              An IPv4 address in numbers-and-dots notation, an IPv6 address in
              hex  notation  enclosed in brackets, or a hostname that resolves
              to an IPv4 or an IPv6 address.
              Examples: 127.0.0.1, [::1], www.dest-unreach.org, dns1

       IPv4 address
              An IPv4 address in numbers-and-dots notation or a hostname  that
              resolves to an IPv4 address.
              Examples: 127.0.0.1, www.dest-unreach.org, dns2

       IPv6 address
              An  iPv6  address  in hexnumbers-and-colons notation enclosed in
              brackets, or a hostname that resolves to an IPv6 address.
              Examples:   [::1],    [1234:5678:9abc:def0:1234:5678:9abc:def0],
              ip6name.domain.org

       long   A number read with strtol() . The value must fit into a C long.

       long long
              A  number read with strtoll() . The value must fit into a C long
              long.

       off_t  An implementation dependend signed number, usually 32 bits, read
              with strtol or strtoll.

       off64_t
              An implementation dependend signed number, usually 64 bits, read
              with strtol or strtoll.

       mode_t An unsigned integer, read with strtoul() , specifying mode (per-
              mission) bits.

       pid_t  A number, read with strtol() , specifying a process id.

       port   A  uint16_t  (16  bit  unsigned  number) specifying a TCP or UDP
              port, read with strtoul() .

       protocol
              An unsigned 8 bit number, read with strtoul() .

       size_t An unsigned number with size_t limitations, read with strtoul .

       sockname
              A socket address. See address-option `bind'

       string A sequence of characters, not containing '\0' and, depending  on
              the  position  within  the command line, ':', ',', or "!!". Note
              that you might have to escape shell meta characters in the  com-
              mand line.

       TCP service
              A  service  name, not starting with a digit, that is resolved by
              getservbyname() , or an unsigned int 16  bit  number  read  with
              strtoul() .

       timeval
              A  double  float specifying seconds; the number is mapped into a
              struct timeval, consisting of seconds and microseconds.

       timespec
              A double float specifying seconds; the number is mapped  into  a
              struct timespec, consisting of seconds and nanoseconds.

       UDP service
              A  service  name, not starting with a digit, that is resolved by
              getservbyname() , or an unsigned int 16  bit  number  read  with
              strtoul() .

       unsigned int
              A  number  read with strtoul() . The value must fit into a C un-
              signed int.

       user   If the first character is a decimal digit,  the  value  is  read
              with  strtoul() as unsigned integer specifying a user id. Other-
              wise, it must be an existing user name.

EXAMPLES
       socat - TCP4:www.domain.org:80

              transfers data between STDIO (-) and a TCP4 connection  to  port
              80  of  host www.domain.org. This example results in an interac-
              tive connection similar to telnet or netcat. The stdin  terminal
              parameters  are  not changed, so you may close the relay with ^D
              or abort it with ^C.

       socat -d -d READLINE,history=$HOME/.http_history \
       TCP4:www.domain.org:www,crnl

              this is similar to the previous example, but you  can  edit  the
              current  line  in a bash like manner (READLINE) and use the his-
              tory file .http_history; socat prints  messages  about  progress
              (-d  -d). The  port is specified by service name (www), and cor-
              rect network line termination characters (crnl)  instead  of  NL
              are used.

       socat TCP4-LISTEN:www TCP4:www.domain.org:www

              installs  a  simple TCP port forwarder. With TCP4-LISTEN it lis-
              tens on local port "www" until a connection  comes  in,  accepts
              it,  then  connects  to  the  remote host (TCP4) and starts data
              transfer. It will not accept a second connection.

       socat -d -d -lmlocal2 \
       TCP4-LISTEN:80,bind=myaddr1,reuseaddr,fork,su=nobody,range=10.0.0.0/8 \
       TCP4:www.domain.org:80,bind=myaddr2

              TCP port forwarder, each side bound to another local IP  address
              (bind).  This example handles an almost arbitrary number of par-
              allel or consecutive connections by fork'ing a new process after
              each  accept() . It provides a little security by su'ing to user
              nobody after forking; it only permits connections from the  pri-
              vate  10  network (range); due to reuseaddr, it allows immediate
              restart after master process's termination, even if  some  child
              sockets  are  not  completely  shut down.  With -lmlocal2, socat
              logs to stderr until successfully reaching the accept loop. Fur-
              ther logging is directed to syslog with facility local2.

       socat TCP4-LISTEN:5555,fork,tcpwrap=script \
       EXEC:/bin/myscript,chroot=/home/sandbox,su-d=sandbox,pty,stderr

              a  simple  server  that  accepts  connections  (TCP4-LISTEN) and
              fork's a new child process for each connection; every child acts
              as  single  relay.   The  client must match the rules for daemon
              process name "script" in /etc/hosts.allow  and  /etc/hosts.deny,
              otherwise  it is refused access (see "man 5 hosts_access").  For
              EXEC'uting  the  program,  the   child   process   chroot's   to
              /home/sandbox, su's to user sandbox, and then starts the program
              /home/sandbox/bin/myscript. Socat and myscript communicate via a
              pseudo  tty (pty); myscript's stderr is redirected to stdout, so
              its error messages are transferred via socat  to  the  connected
              client.

       socat EXEC:"mail.sh target@domain.com",fdin=3,fdout=4 \
       TCP4:mail.relay.org:25,crnl,bind=alias1.server.org,mss=512

              mail.sh  is  a shell script, distributed with socat, that imple-
              ments a simple SMTP client. It is programmed to "speak" SMTP  on
              its FDs 3 (in) and 4 (out).  The fdin and fdout options tell so-
              cat to use these FDs for communication with the program. Because
              mail.sh inherits stdin and stdout while socat does not use them,
              the script can read a mail body from stdin. Socat  makes  alias1
              your local source address (bind), cares for correct network line
              termination (crnl) and sends at most 512 data bytes  per  packet
              (mss).

       socat -,escape=0x0f /dev/ttyS0,rawer,crnl

              opens  an  interactive  connection via the serial line, e.g. for
              talking with a modem. rawer sets the console's and ttyS0's  ter-
              minal parameters to practicable values, crnl converts to correct
              newline characters. escape allows terminating the socat  process
              with character control-O.

       socat UNIX-LISTEN:/tmp/.X11-unix/X1,fork \
       SOCKS4:host.victim.org:127.0.0.1:6000,socksuser=nobody,sourceport=20

              with  UNIX-LISTEN,  socat  opens  a listening UNIX domain socket
              /tmp/.X11-unix/X1. This path corresponds to local  XWindow  dis-
              play  :1  on your machine, so XWindow client connections to DIS-
              PLAY=:1 are accepted. Socat then speaks with the  SOCKS4  server
              host.victim.org  that  might  permit sourceport 20 based connec-
              tions due to an FTP related weakness in its static  IP  filters.
              Socat  pretends  to be invoked by socksuser nobody, and requests
              to be connected to loopback port 6000 (only weak sockd  configu-
              rations  will allow this). So we get a connection to the victims
              XWindow server and, if it does not require MIT cookies  or  Ker-
              beros  authentication, we can start work. Please note that there
              can only be one connection at a time, because TCP can  establish
              only one session with a given set of addresses and ports.

       socat -u /tmp/readdata,seek-end=0,ignoreeof -

              this  is an example for unidirectional data transfer (-u). Socat
              transfers data from file /tmp/readdata (implicit address GOPEN),
              starting at its current end (seek-end=0 lets socat start reading
              at current end of file; use seek=0 or no seek  option  to  first
              read  the  existing  data) in a "tail -f" like mode (ignoreeof).
              The "file" might also be a listening UNIX domain socket (do  not
              use a seek option then).

       (sleep 5; echo PASSWORD; sleep 5; echo ls; sleep 1) |
       socat - EXEC:'ssh -l user server',pty,setsid,ctty

              EXEC'utes an ssh session to server. Uses a pty for communication
              between socat and ssh, makes it ssh's  controlling  tty  (ctty),
              and makes this pty the owner of a new process group (setsid), so
              ssh accepts the password from socat.

       socat -u TCP4-LISTEN:3334,reuseaddr,fork \
       OPEN:/tmp/in.log,creat,append

              implements a simple network based message collector.   For  each
              client connecting to port 3334, a new child process is generated
              (option fork).  All data sent by the clients  are  append'ed  to
              the file /tmp/in.log.  If the file does not exist, socat creat's
              it.  Option reuseaddr allows immediate  restart  of  the  server
              process.

       socat PTY,link=$HOME/dev/vmodem0,rawer,wait-slave \
       EXEC:"ssh modemserver.us.org socat - /dev/ttyS0,nonblock,rawer"

              generates  a pseudo terminal device (PTY) on the client that can
              be reached under the symbolic link $HOME/dev/vmodem0.  An appli-
              cation  that expects a serial line or modem can be configured to
              use $HOME/dev/vmodem0; its traffic will be directed to a  modem-
              server  via  ssh  where  another  socat  instance  links  it  to
              /dev/ttyS0.

       socat TCP4-LISTEN:2022,reuseaddr,fork \
       PROXY:proxy:www.domain.org:22,proxyport=3128,proxyauth=user:pass

              starts a forwarder that accepts connections on  port  2022,  and
              directs  them  through  the  proxy daemon listening on port 3128
              (proxyport) on host proxy, using the CONNECT method, where  they
              are  authenticated  as "user" with "pass" (proxyauth). The proxy
              should establish connections to host www.domain.org on  port  22
              then.

       socat - OPENSSL:server:4443,cafile=server.crt,cert=client.pem

              is an OpenSSL client that tries to establish a secure connection
              to an SSL server. Option cafile specifies a file  that  contains
              trust  certificates:  we  trust the server only when it presents
              one of these certificates and proofs that it  owns  the  related
              private key.  Otherwise the connection is terminated.  With cert
              a file containing the client certificate and the associated pri-
              vate  key  is  specified.  This  is  required in case the server
              wishes a client authentication; many Internet servers do not.
              The first address ('-') can be replaced by almost any other  so-
              cat address.

       socat                                        OPENSSL-LISTEN:4443,reuse-
       addr,pf=ip4,fork,cert=server.pem,cafile=client.crt PIPE

              is an OpenSSL server that accepts TCP connections, presents  the
              certificate  from  the  file server.pem and forces the client to
              present a certificate that is verified against cafile.crt.
              The second address ('PIPE') can be replaced by almost any  other
              socat address.
              For instructions on generating and distributing OpenSSL keys and
              certificates see the additional socat docu socat-openssl.txt.

       echo |socat -u - file:/tmp/bigfile,create,largefile,seek=100000000000

              creates a 100GB sparse file; this requires a  file  system  type
              that supports this (ext2, ext3, reiserfs, jfs; not minix, vfat).
              The operation of writing 1 byte might take long (reiserfs:  some
              minutes;  ext2:  "no"  time), and the resulting file can consume
              some disk space with  just  its  inodes  (reiserfs:  2MB;  ext2:
              16KB).

       socat tcp-l:7777,reuseaddr,fork system:'filan -i 0 -s >&2',nofork

              listens  for incoming TCP connections on port 7777. For each ac-
              cepted connection, invokes a shell. This shell has its stdin and
              stdout directly connected to the TCP socket (nofork).  The shell
              starts filan and lets it print the socket  addresses  to  stderr
              (your terminal window).

       echo         -en         "\0\14\0\0\c"        |socat        -u        -
       file:/usr/bin/squid.exe,seek=0x00074420

              functions as primitive binary editor: it writes the 4 bytes  000
              014   000   000  to  the  executable  /usr/bin/squid  at  offset
              0x00074420 (this is a real world patch to make  the  squid  exe-
              cutable from Cygwin run under Windows, actual per May 2004).

       socat - tcp:www.blackhat.org:31337,readbytes=1000

              connects to an unknown service and prevents being flooded.

       socat -U TCP:target:9999,end-close TCP-L:8888,reuseaddr,fork

              merges  data arriving from different TCP streams on port 8888 to
              just one stream to target:9999. The  end-close  option  prevents
              the child processes forked off by the second address from termi-
              nating the shared connection to 9999 (close(2) just unlinks  the
              inode  which  stays  active as long as the parent process lives;
              shutdown(2) would actively terminate the connection).

       socat           -           UDP4-DATAGRAM:192.168.1.0:123,sp=123,broad-
       cast,range=192.168.1.0/24

              sends a broadcast to the network 192.168.1.0/24 and receives the
              replies of the timeservers there. Ignores NTP packets from hosts
              outside this network.

       socat - SOCKET-DATAGRAM:2:2:17:x007bxc0a80100x0000000000000000,b-
       ind=x007bx00000000x0000000000000000,setsockopt-int=1:6:1,r-
       ange=x0000xc0a80100x0000000000000000:x0000xffffff00x0000000000000000

              is semantically equivalent to the previous example, but all pa-
              rameters are specified in generic form. the value 6 of setsock-
              opt-int is the Linux value for SO_BROADCAST.

       socat - IP4-DATAGRAM:255.255.255.255:44,broadcast,range=10.0.0.0/8

              sends a broadcast to the local network(s) using protocol 44. Ac-
              cepts replies from the private address range only.

       socat - UDP4-DATAGRAM:224.255.0.1:6666,bind=:6666,ip-add-member-
       ship=224.255.0.1:eth0

              transfers data from stdin to the specified multicast address us-
              ing UDP. Both local and remote ports are 6666. Tells the inter-
              face eth0 to also accept multicast packets of the given group.
              Multiple hosts on the local network can run this command, so all
              data sent by any of the hosts will be received by all the other
              ones. Note that there are many possible reasons for failure, in-
              cluding IP-filters, routing issues, wrong interface selection by
              the operating system, bridges, or a badly configured switch.

       socat TCP:host2:4443 TUN:192.168.255.1/24,up

              establishes one side of a virtual (but not private!) network
              with host2 where a similar process might run, with UDP-L and tun
              address 192.168.255.2. They can reach each other using the ad-
              dresses 192.168.255.1 and 192.168.255.2. Note that streaming eg.
              via TCP or SSL does not guarantee to retain packet boundaries
              and may thus cause packet loss.

       socat PTY,link=/var/run/ppp,rawer INTERFACE:hdlc0

              circumvents the problem that pppd requires a serial device and
              thus might not be able to work on a synchronous line that is
              represented by a network device.  socat creates a PTY to make
              pppd happy, binds to the network interface hdlc0, and can trans-
              fer data between both devices. Use pppd on device /var/run/ppp
              then.

       socat -T 1 -d -d TCP-L:10081,reuseaddr,fork,crlf SYSTEM:"echo -e
       \"\\\"HTTP/1.0 200 OK\\\nDocumentType: text/plain\\\n\\\ndate:
       \$\(date\)\\\nserver:\$SOCAT_SOCKADDR:\$SOCAT_SOCKPORT\\\nclient: \$SO-
       CAT_PEERADDR:\$SOCAT_PEERPORT\\\n\\\"\"; cat; echo -e \"\\\"\\\n\\\"\""

              creates a simple HTTP echo server: each HTTP client that con-
              nects gets a valid HTTP reply that contains information about
              the client address and port as it is seen by the server host,
              the host address (which might vary on multihomed servers), and
              the original client request.

       socat -d -d UDP4-RECVFROM:9999,so-broadcast,so-timestamp,ip-pkt-
       info,ip-recverr,ip-recvopts,ip-recvtos,ip-recvttl!!- SYSTEM:'export;
       sleep 1' |grep SOCAT

              waits for an incoming UDP packet on port 9999 and prints the en-
              vironment variables provided by socat. On BSD based systems you
              have to replace ip-pktinfo with ip-recvdstaddr,ip-recvif. Espe-
              cially interesting is SOCAT_IP_DSTADDR: it contains the target
              address of the packet which may be a unicast, multicast, or
              broadcast address.

DIAGNOSTICS
       Socat uses a logging mechanism that allows filtering messages by sever-
       ity. The severities provided are more or less compatible to the appro-
       priate syslog priority. With one or up to four occurrences of the -d
       command line option, the lowest priority of messages that are issued
       can be selected. Each message contains a single uppercase character
       specifying the messages severity (one of F, E, W, N, I, or D)

       FATAL: Conditions that require unconditional and immediate program ter-
              mination.

       ERROR: Conditions that prevent proper program processing. Usually the
              program is terminated (see option -s).

       WARNING:
              Something did not function correctly or is in a state where cor-
              rect further processing cannot be guaranteed, but might be pos-
              sible.

       NOTICE:
              Interesting actions of the program, e.g. for supervising socat
              in some kind of server mode.

       INFO:  Description of what the program does, and maybe why it happens.
              Allows monitoring the lifecycles of file descriptors.

       DEBUG: Description of how the program works, all system or library
              calls and their results.

       Log messages can be written to stderr, to a file, or to syslog.

       On exit, socat gives status 0 if it terminated due to EOF or inactivity
       timeout, with a positive value on error, and with a negative value on
       fatal error.

FILES
       /usr/bin/socat
       /usr/bin/filan
       /usr/bin/procan

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       Input variables carry information from the environment to socat, output
       variables are set by socat for use in executed scripts and programs.

       In the output variables beginning with "SOCAT" this prefix is actually
       replaced by the upper case name of the executable or the value of op-
       tion -lp.

       SOCAT_DEFAULT_LISTEN_IP (input)
              (Values 4 or 6) Sets the IP version to be used for listen, recv,
              and recvfrom addresses if no pf (protocol-family) option is
              given. Is overridden by socat options -4 or -6.

       SOCAT_PREFERRED_RESOLVE_IP (input)
              (Values 0, 4, or 6) Sets the IP version to be used when resolv-
              ing target host names when version is not specified by address
              type, option pf (protocol-family), or address format. If name
              resolution does not return a matching entry, the first result
              (with differing IP version) is taken. With value 0, socat always
              selects the first record and its IP version.

       SOCAT_FORK_WAIT (input)
              Specifies the time (seconds) to sleep the parent and child pro-
              cesses after successful fork(). Useful for debugging.

       SOCAT_VERSION (output)
              Socat sets this variable to its version string, e.g. "1.7.0.0"
              for released versions or e.g. "1.6.0.1+envvar" for temporary
              versions; can be used in scripts invoked by socat.

       SOCAT_PID (output)
              Socat sets this variable to its process id. In case of fork ad-
              dress option, SOCAT_PID gets the child processes id. Forking for
              exec and system does not change SOCAT_PID.

       SOCAT_PPID (output)
              Socat sets this variable to its process id. In case of fork, SO-
              CAT_PPID keeps the pid of the master process.

       SOCAT_PEERADDR (output)
              With passive socket addresses (all LISTEN and RECVFROM ad-
              dresses), this variable is set to a string describing the peers
              socket address. Port information is not included.

       SOCAT_PEERPORT (output)
              With appropriate passive socket addresses (TCP, UDP, and SCTP -
              LISTEN and RECVFROM), this variable is set to a string contain-
              ing the number of the peer port.

       SOCAT_SOCKADDR (output)
              With all LISTEN addresses, this variable is set to a string de-
              scribing the local socket address. Port information is not in-
              cluded example

       SOCAT_SOCKPORT (output)
              With TCP-LISTEN, UDP-LISTEN, and SCTP-LISTEN addresses, this
              variable is set to the local port.

       SOCAT_TIMESTAMP (output)
              With all RECVFROM addresses where address option so-timestamp is
              applied, socat sets this variable to the resulting timestamp.

       SOCAT_IP_OPTIONS (output)
              With all IPv4 based RECVFROM addresses where address option
              ip-recvopts is applied, socat fills this variable with the IP
              options of the received packet.

       SOCAT_IP_DSTADDR (output)
              With all IPv4 based RECVFROM addresses where address option
              ip-recvdstaddr (BSD) or ip-pktinfo (other platforms) is applied,
              socat sets this variable to the destination address of the re-
              ceived packet. This is particularly useful to identify broadcast
              and multicast addressed packets.

       SOCAT_IP_IF (output)
              With all IPv4 based RECVFROM addresses where address option
              ip-recvif (BSD) or ip-pktinfo (other platforms) is applied, so-
              cat sets this variable to the name of the interface where the
              packet was received.

       SOCAT_IP_LOCADDR (output)
              With all IPv4 based RECVFROM addresses where address option
              ip-pktinfo is applied, socat sets this variable to the address
              of the interface where the packet was received.

       SOCAT_IP_TOS (output)
              With all IPv4 based RECVFROM addresses where address option
              ip-recvtos is applied, socat sets this variable to the TOS (type
              of service) of the received packet.

       SOCAT_IP_TTL (output)
              With all IPv4 based RECVFROM addresses where address option
              ip-recvttl is applied, socat sets this variable to the TTL (time
              to live) of the received packet.

       SOCAT_IPV6_HOPLIMIT (output)
              With all IPv6 based RECVFROM addresses where address option
              ipv6-recvhoplimit is applied, socat sets this variable to the
              hoplimit value of the received packet.

       SOCAT_IPV6_DSTADDR (output)
              With all IPv6 based RECVFROM addresses where address option
              ipv6-recvpktinfo is applied, socat sets this variable to the
              destination address of the received packet.

       SOCAT_IPV6_TCLASS (output)
              With all IPv6 based RECVFROM addresses where address option
              ipv6-recvtclass is applied, socat sets this variable to the
              transfer class of the received packet.

       SOCAT_OPENSSL_X509_ISSUER (output)
              Issuer field from peer certificate

       SOCAT_OPENSSL_X509_SUBJECT (output)
              Subject field from peer certificate

       SOCAT_OPENSSL_X509_COMMONNAME (output)
              commonName entries from peer certificates subject. Multiple val-
              ues are separated by " // ".

       SOCAT_OPENSSL_X509_* (output)
              all other entries from peer certificates subject

       SOCAT_OPENSSL_X509V3_DNS (output)
              DNS entries from peer certificates extensions - subjectAltName
              field. Multiple values are separated by " // ".

       HOSTNAME (input)
              Is used to determine the hostname for logging (see -lh).

       LOGNAME (input)
              Is used as name for the socks client user name if no socksuser
              is given.
              With options su and su-d, LOGNAME is set to the given user name.

       USER (input)
              Is used as name for the socks client user name if no socksuser
              is given and LOGNAME is empty.
              With options su and su-d, USER is set to the given user name.

       SHELL (output)
              With options su and su-d, SHELL is set to the login shell of the
              given user.

       PATH (output)
              Can be set with option path for exec and system addresses.

       HOME (output)
              With options su and su-d, HOME is set to the home directory of
              the given user.

CREDITS
       The work of the following groups and organizations was invaluable for
       this project:

       The FSF (GNU, http://www.fsf.org/ project with their free and portable
       development software and lots of other useful tools and libraries.

       The Linux developers community (http://www.linux.org/) for providing a
       free, open source operating system.

       The Open Group (http://www.unix-systems.org/) for making their standard
       specifications available on the Internet for free.

VERSION
       This man page describes version 1.7.3 of socat.

BUGS
       Addresses cannot be nested, so a single socat process cannot, e.g.,
       drive ssl over socks.

       Address option ftruncate without value uses default 1 instead of 0.

       Verbose modes (-x and/or -v) display line termination characters incon-
       sistently when address options cr or crnl are used: They show the data
       after conversion in either direction.

       The licenses of OpenSSL and GNU Readline are incompatible. Therefore
       readline support is disabled in Debian.

       Send bug reports to <socat@dest-unreach.org>

SEE ALSO
       nc(1), rinetd(8), openssl(1), stunnel(8), rlwrap(1), setsid(1)

       Socat home page http://www.dest-unreach.org/socat/

AUTHOR
       Gerhard Rieger <rieger@dest-unreach.org> and contributors

                                                                      socat(1)

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