systemd-socket-proxyd - Bidirectionally proxy local sockets to another (possibly remote) socket
Contents
Description
systemd-socket-proxyd is a generic socket-activated network socket forwarder proxy daemon for IPv4, IPv6
and UNIX stream sockets. It may be used to bi-directionally forward traffic from a local listening socket
to a local or remote destination socket.
One use of this tool is to provide socket activation support for services that do not natively support
socket activation. On behalf of the service to activate, the proxy inherits the socket from systemd,
accepts each client connection, opens a connection to a configured server for each client, and then
bidirectionally forwards data between the two.
This utility's behavior is similar to socat(1). The main differences for systemd-socket-proxyd are
support for socket activation with "Accept=no" and an event-driven design that scales better with the
number of connections.
Note that systemd-socket-proxyd will not forward socket side channel information, i.e. will not forward
SCM_RIGHTS, SCM_CREDENTIALS, SCM_SECURITY, SO_PEERCRED, SO_PEERPIDFD, SO_PEERSEC, SO_PEERGROUPS and
similar.
Examples
SimpleExample
Use two services with a dependency and no namespace isolation.
Example1.proxy-to-nginx.socket
[Socket]
ListenStream=80
[Install]
WantedBy=sockets.target
Example2.proxy-to-nginx.service
[Unit]
Requires=nginx.service
After=nginx.service
Requires=proxy-to-nginx.socket
After=proxy-to-nginx.socket
[Service]
Type=notify
ExecStart=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-socket-proxyd /run/nginx/socket
PrivateTmp=yes
PrivateNetwork=yes
Example3.nginx.conf
[...]
server {
listen unix:/run/nginx/socket;
[...]
Example4.Enablingtheproxy
# systemctl enable --now proxy-to-nginx.socket
$ curl http://localhost:80/
If nginx.service has StopWhenUnneeded= set, then passing --exit-idle-time= to systemd-socket-proxyd
allows both services to stop during idle periods.
NamespaceExample
Similar as above, but runs the socket proxy and the main service in the same private namespace, assuming
that nginx.service has PrivateTmp= and PrivateNetwork= set, too.
Example5.proxy-to-nginx.socket
[Socket]
ListenStream=80
[Install]
WantedBy=sockets.target
Example6.proxy-to-nginx.service
[Unit]
Requires=nginx.service
After=nginx.service
Requires=proxy-to-nginx.socket
After=proxy-to-nginx.socket
JoinsNamespaceOf=nginx.service
[Service]
Type=notify
ExecStart=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-socket-proxyd 127.0.0.1:8080
PrivateTmp=yes
PrivateNetwork=yes
Example7.nginx.conf
[...]
server {
listen 8080;
[...]
Example8.Enablingtheproxy
# systemctl enable --now proxy-to-nginx.socket
$ curl http://localhost:80/
Exit Status
On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.
Name
systemd-socket-proxyd - Bidirectionally proxy local sockets to another (possibly remote) socket
Options
The following options are understood:
-h, --help
Print a short help text and exit.
--version
Print a short version string and exit.
--connections-max=, -c
Sets the maximum number of simultaneous connections, defaults to 256. If the limit of concurrent
connections is reached further connections will be refused.
Added in version 233.
--exit-idle-time=
Sets the time before exiting when there are no connections, defaults to infinity. Takes a unit-less
value in seconds, or a time span value such as "5min 20s".
Added in version 246.
See Also
systemd(1), systemd.socket(5), systemd.service(5), systemctl(1), socat(1), nginx(1), curl(1) systemd 257.7 SYSTEMD-SOCKET-PROXYD(8)
Synopsis
systemd-socket-proxyd [OPTIONS...] HOST:PORTsystemd-socket-proxyd [OPTIONS...] UNIX-DOMAIN-SOCKET-PATH
