tynor88/socat repository overview

⁠docker-socat

[][hub] [][hub] [][hub] [][hub] [][hub] [hub]: https://hub.docker.com/r/tynor88/socat/⁠

socat is a relay for bidirectional data transfer between two independent data channels. Each of these data channels may be a file, pipe, device (serial line etc. or a pseudo terminal), a socket (UNIX, IP4, IP6 - raw, UDP, TCP), an SSL socket, proxy CONNECT connection, a file descriptor (stdin etc.), the GNU line editor (readline), a program, or a combination of two of these. These modes include generation of "listening" sockets, named pipes, and pseudo terminals.

socat can be used, e.g., as TCP port forwarder (one-shot or daemon), as an external socksifier, for attacking weak firewalls, as a shell interface to UNIX sockets, IP6 relay, for redirecting TCP oriented programs to a serial line, to logically connect serial lines on different computers, or to establish a relatively secure environment (su and chroot) for running client or server shell scripts with network connections.

In the context of docker, socat is commonly used to open up network connectivity to docker containers after they have been started, when ports were not mapped originally. This can be useful, for example, in development, when exact ports may not be known at the time the original docker container is created.

⁠Usage

docker run \
  --name=socat \
  -e LISTEN_PORT=<listening port> \
  -e FORWARD_PORT=<forwarding / redirect port> \
  --link <name of target docker container>:target_app \
  -p <listening port>:<listening port>
  tynor88/socat

Parameters

• -e LISTEN_PORT The port to listen for TCP4 connections
• -e FORWARD_PORT The port to redirect / forward TCP4 connections to
• --link __:target_app The name of the docker container onto which you are targeting the connections to

⁠Info

• Shell access whilst the container is running: docker exec -it socat /bin/ash
• Upgrade to the latest version: docker restart socat
• To monitor the logs of the container in realtime: docker logs -f socat

⁠Versions

• 2017/01/24:
  • Added flexibility to target specified docker container
• 2016/09/01:
  • Initial release