Ncurses-Powered Postgres Binary Protocol Proxy
The terminal flickers. A cursor blinks. Your hands hover above the keyboard, ready to slice into the raw binary stream between Postgres and its client.
Ncurses gives you the canvas. The Postgres binary protocol gives you the signal. A proxy sits in the middle, decoding the traffic, shaping it, and showing it in real time. No GUI. No browser. Just your terminal—fast, responsive, and stripped to essentials.
Postgres speaks in its own binary tongue: startup messages, authentication, query execution, and data rows. A proxy for the Postgres binary protocol listens, parses, and forwards each packet. With Ncurses, you can render the live flow without blocking, updating screens as network events arrive. You control input. You track latency. You visualize queries and results as they pass.
Binary protocol proxying is more efficient than text-based logging. It captures every transaction without the noise of intermediate translations. Combined with Ncurses, it turns your terminal into a dynamic dashboard. You can switch views, filter traffic, inspect payloads, and monitor session state.
Key components of a Ncurses-based Postgres binary protocol proxy:
- Raw TCP capture between clients and Postgres
- Accurate parsing of protocol structs without corrupting message boundaries
- Non-blocking event loop for simultaneous read, parse, and render
- Ncurses UI panes for query lists, connection stats, and message details
- Secure passthrough to preserve authentication and SSL negotiation
This approach is portable. Ncurses runs anywhere a terminal does. Postgres binary protocol parsing can be done in C, Rust, or Python, but keep the message specs close. Avoid guesswork—follow the official protocol documentation.
The result: live visibility into every query hitting Postgres, without leaving your shell. Debug performance bottlenecks. Audit queries. Test client behavior under load. Operate with precision.
Build it. Ship it. See it run at hoop.dev—connect your proxy, watch it live in minutes.