socat
Relays and encrypted shells; port redirector in pivoting.
A very versatile network relay, like netcat on steroids: it connects any two streams. In pentesting it is used as a port redirector between networks, to stabilise shells with a full PTY and to tunnel over TLS.
Family Pivoting & tunnelling
Flags TCP-LISTEN:,fork TCP:
Concepts Local port forwarding (SSH tunnel), Port Relay with socat
Cheatsheet socat, ligolo & Meterpreter
Installation
sudo apt install -y socatUseful commands
Appears in
Some machines where its use is documented; not an exhaustive list.
- Symfonos 1 & 2VulnHub