Socat Proxy

A lightweight Docker container that creates a UNIX socket proxy to TCP connections using socat and Alpine Linux.

Note

Github repo is a mirror of https://git.djeex.fr/Djeex/socat-proxy. You'll find full package, history and release note there.

📑 Table of Contents

• 🚀 Features
• 🔧 How It Works
• 📋 Use Case
• 🛠️ Configuration
  • Environment Variables
• 🚢 Quick Start
  • Using Docker Compose (Recommended)
  • Using Docker Run
• 💡 Deployment example for Beszel

🚀 Features

• Configurable: Environment variable driven configuration
• Socket Management: Automatic UNIX socket creation and cleanup
• Production Ready: Includes proper error handling and logging

🔧 How It Works

1. Socket Check: Verifies if UNIX socket exists at startup
2. Cleanup: Removes existing socket file/folder if present
3. Socket Creation: Creates new UNIX socket using nc -lU
4. Proxy Start: Starts socat to proxy UNIX socket to TCP endpoint

📋 Use Case

Proxy Docker socket from a docker proxy to a container in host mode without directly exposing socket to host. For example:

Beszel is a monitoring tool that requires network_mode: host to function properly. This creates a security challenge: Beszel needs access to the Docker socket, but it cannot reach a containerized docker-socket-proxy due to the network isolation. Running docker-socket-proxy in host mode or exposing port to host would also be highly insecure.

Socat-proxy solves this problem by creating a secure bridge between host-mode containers and containerized socket proxies. It exposes a UNIX socket file on the host filesystem that Beszel can access, while securely forwarding all Docker API requests to the socket-proxy running on the bridge network.

🛠️ Configuration

Environment Variables

Variable	Default	Description	Example
TARGET_HOST	-	Target hostname/IP to proxy to	socket-proxy-beszel
TARGET_PORT	-	Target port to proxy to	2375
UNIX_SOCKET_NAME	-	Name of the socket file	docker.sock
UNIX_SOCKET_PATH	-	Path to UNIX socket inside container	/socket
HOST_SOCKET_PATH	-	Host path for socket mounting	/docker/beszel-agent/sock
DEBUG_LEVEL	-	Level of logs verbose	0,1,2,3

🚢 Quick Start

Using Docker Compose (Recommended)

1. Create a .env file with your configuration:

TARGET_HOST= #your target host
TARGET_PORT= #your target host port
UNIX_SOCKET_NAME= #your socket file name
UNIX_SOCKET_PATH= #your socket folder path inside socat-proxy
HOST_SOCKET_PATH= #your socket folder path inside your host
DEBUG_LEVEL=1

2. Create a compose.yml file:

services:
  socat-proxy:
    image: git.djeex.fr/djeex/socat-proxy:latest
    environment:
      - TARGET_HOST=${TARGET_HOST}
      - TARGET_PORT=${TARGET_PORT}
      - UNIX_SOCKET_NAME=${UNIX_SOCKET_NAME}
      - UNIX_SOCKET_PATH=${UNIX_SOCKET_PATH}
      - HOST_SOCKET_PATH=${HOST_SOCKET_PATH}
      - DEBUG_LEVEL=${DEBUG_LEVEL}
    volumes:
      - ${HOST_SOCKET_PATH}:${UNIX_SOCKET_PATH}
    restart: unless-stopped

3. Start the service:

docker compose up -d

Using Docker Run

docker run -d \
  --name socat-proxy \
  -e TARGET_HOST= #your target host \
  -e TARGET_PORT= #your target host port \
  -e UNIX_SOCKET_NAME= #your socket file name \
  -e UNIX_SOCKET_PATH= #your socket folder path inside socat-proxy \
  -e HOST_SOCKET_PATH= #your socket folder path inside your host\
  -e DEBUG_LEVEL=1 \
  -v ${HOST_SOCKET_PATH}:${UNIX_SOCKET_PATH}$ \
  git.djeex.fr/djeex/socat-proxy:latest

💡 Deployment example for Beszel

services:
  socat-proxy:
    image: git.djeex.fr/djeex/socat-proxy:latest
    container_name: socat-proxy-beszel
    environment:
      - TARGET_HOST=${TARGET_HOST}
      - TARGET_PORT=${TARGET_PORT}
      - UNIX_SOCKET_PATH=${UNIX_SOCKET_PATH}
      - HOST_SOCKET_PATH=${HOST_SOCKET_PATH}
      - UNIX_SOCKET_NAME=${UNIX_SOCKET_NAME}
    volumes:
      - ${HOST_SOCKET_PATH}:${UNIX_SOCKET_PATH}
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      - ${TARGET_HOST}

  socket-proxy:
    image: lscr.io/linuxserver/socket-proxy:latest
    container_name: ${TARGET_HOST}
    security_opt:
      - no-new-privileges:true
    environment:
      - CONTAINERS=1
      - INFO=1
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
    restart: unless-stopped
    read_only: true
    tmpfs:
      - /run

  beszel-agent:
    image: henrygd/beszel-agent:latest
    container_name: beszel-agent
    restart: unless-stopped
    network_mode: host
    security_opt:
      - no-new-privileges:true
    volumes:
      - ${HOST_SOCKET_PATH}/${UNIX_SOCKET_NAME}:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
    environment:
      - #... your Beszel environment var 
    depends_on:
      - socat-proxy