Pgcli with Socat: Fast and Flexible PostgreSQL Connections

The terminal waits. You type, and Pgcli answers fast—instant autocompletion, syntax highlighting, and smart prompts for your PostgreSQL database. But speed in one shell is not enough. Sometimes you need to bridge systems, route traffic, or tunnel connections across networks. This is where Socat steps in, turning raw sockets into precise pipelines.

Pgcli with Socat lets you connect to a remote PostgreSQL instance through complex or restricted environments. It works when direct connections fail, when VPNs slow you down, or when corporate firewalls block standard ports. Socat creates a TCP tunnel from your local machine to the database host, and Pgcli takes it from there—commanding the data with terse power.

Installing Pgcli is straightforward:

pip install pgcli

You get a clean CLI with better UX than psql.

Installing Socat depends on your OS:

• Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install socat
• macOS: brew install socat

Using Pgcli with Socat for a tunnel:

socat TCP-LISTEN:5433,fork TCP:remote_host:5432
pgcli -h localhost -p 5433 -U dbuser dbname

Here, Socat listens locally on port 5433, forwarding all traffic to the remote host’s PostgreSQL port. Pgcli connects through that local port. Latency stays low, commands stay tight.

Why choose Pgcli and Socat over other tools?

• Pgcli is faster to navigate than psql, and its autocompletion cuts typo risk.
• Socat handles arbitrary protocols, not just TCP, making it more flexible than SSH tunnels in certain edge cases.
• Together, they create a reliable path to your data with minimal code and zero GUI overhead.

For testing, staging, or production, you can script Socat and Pgcli into CI pipelines. Rotate ports, switch databases, or connect to ephemeral environments without touching your primary network routes.

Don’t waste cycles waiting for half-broken tools. See Pgcli with Socat run live in minutes—try it now on hoop.dev and take control of your database connections.