---
name: "tcpbug"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "tcputils"
version: "0.6.2+git20120127.c28952d-0.1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/tcpbug"
---

# tcpbug(1)

TCP/IP connection bugging device

## NAME

tcpbug - TCP/IP connection bugging device

## SYNOPSIS

**tcpbug** \[**-cx**\] \[**-btT**\] *local-port* *remote-host* *remote-port*

## DESCRIPTION

**tcpbug** forwards a TCP/IP connection to port *local-port* on the local machine to the port *remote-port* on *remote-host* while spying on the connection and writing all data passing through to standard output. All data coming from the client is printed with a greater than sign (**\>**) first on each line, and all data coming from the server is printed with a less than sign (**\<**) first on each line. Any byte offsets and time-stamps are printed before the greater than or less than sign, and are separated from each other by a colon (**:**).

## OPTIONS

- **-b**

  Print the offset of the first byte in the stream for each line.

- **-c**

  Display bytes as individual characters. Printable characters are displayed directly, some control characters appear as C-language escapes (**\\n**, **\\r**, **\\t** et.c), while others appear as 3-digit octal numbers. This should be similar to the -c switch of [**od**(1)](/od/1.md).

- **-t**

  Print the time at which the data was received for each line. The time is the number of seconds and microseconds, separated by a decimal point (**.**), since 00:00 UTC, January 1, 1970, as reported by gettimeofday().

- **-T**

  Print the time at which the data was received for each line. The time is the number of seconds and microseconds, separated by a decimal point (**.**), since the connections were established.

- **-x**

  Display each byte as a two digit hexadecimal number.

## SEE ALSO

[**tcpconnect**(1)](/tcpconnect/1.md), [**tcplisten**(1)](/tcplisten/1.md), [**od**(1)](/od/1.md).

## BUGS

The names of the options are not yet finalized, and may change at a future release.