shell utilities to connect programs to sockets
Netpipes is a collection of utilities which attempts to provide the functionality of pipes over a network. It consists of small utilities that perform a single task, such as listening on a port for connections (faucet), sending data to a remote port (hose), or even multiplex multiple streams over a single TCP connection (encapsulate).
Homepage: http://web.purplefrog.com/~thoth/netpipes/netpipes.html