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Socat Network Operations Manager

Welcome to the Socat Network Operations Manager wiki — the comprehensive documentation hub for socat_manager.sh.

What Is This?

A production-grade bash utility that wraps socat into a full session-managed network operations platform. Seven operational modes, process group isolation, protocol-scoped lifecycle management, traffic capture, watchdog auto-restart, and a 220-test CI suite verified across 8 Linux distributions.

Quick Navigation

Page	Description
Quick Start Guide	Install and run your first listener in 60 seconds
Usage Guide	Complete reference for all modes, flags, and features
Configuration Reference	Every CLI flag, config file, and environment variable
Operational Scenarios	Real-world playbooks: relays, tunnels, honeypots, labs
Architecture and Design	Internal design: session system, PID tracking, stop sequence
Troubleshooting Guide	Common issues, diagnostics, and solutions
FAQ	Frequently asked questions
Development Guide	Set up a dev environment and run the test suite
Developer Guide	Internal API reference for extending the script
Contributing	How to submit changes, coding standards, PR process
Security Policy	Vulnerability reporting, threat model, secure deployment
Changelog	Version history with detailed change descriptions

Key Features

• Interactive menu — run with no arguments for a guided, menu-driven interface with input validation and cancel support at every prompt
• 7 operational modes — listen, batch, forward, tunnel (TLS), redirect, status, stop
• Session management — 8-character hex session IDs, .session metadata files, process group isolation via setsid
• Protocol-scoped operations — TCP and UDP treated as independent resources; stopping one never kills the other
• Dual-stack — --dual-stack on any mode launches both TCP and UDP simultaneously
• Traffic capture — --capture on any mode enables verbose hex dump via socat's -v flag
• Watchdog — --watchdog auto-restarts crashed sessions with exponential backoff
• Cross-platform — CI-verified on Ubuntu, Debian, Kali, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, Arch Linux

Repository

• Source: github.com/Sandler73/Socat-Network-Operations-Manager
• Releases: Latest Release
• Issues: Report a Bug · Request a Feature
• License: MIT