Manual: systemd-socket-proxyd
SYSTEMD-SOCKET-PROXYD(8) systemd-socket-proxyd SYSTEMD-SOCKET-PROXYD(8)
NAME
systemd-socket-proxyd - Bidirectionally proxy local sockets to another (possibly remote) socket
SYNOPSIS
systemd-socket-proxyd [OPTIONS...] HOST:PORT
systemd-socket-proxyd [OPTIONS...] UNIX-DOMAIN-SOCKET-PATH
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.
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.
EXIT STATUS
On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.
EXAMPLES
Simple Example
Use two services with a dependency and no namespace isolation.
Example 1. proxy-to-nginx.socket
[Socket]
ListenStream=80
[Install]
WantedBy=sockets.target
Example 2. 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
Example 3. nginx.conf
[...]
server {
listen unix:/run/nginx/socket;
[...]
Example 4. Enabling the proxy
# 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.
Namespace Example
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.
Example 5. proxy-to-nginx.socket
[Socket]
ListenStream=80
[Install]
WantedBy=sockets.target
Example 6. 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
Example 7. nginx.conf
[...]
server {
listen 8080;
[...]
Example 8. Enabling the proxy
# systemctl enable --now proxy-to-nginx.socket
$ curl http://localhost:80/
SEE ALSO
systemd(1), systemd.socket(5), systemd.service(5), systemctl(1), socat(1), nginx(1), curl(1)
systemd 259.5 SYSTEMD-SOCKET-PROXYD(8)