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Make Traffic Follow Through Proxies Using ProxyChains

Installation

Ubuntu

wajig install proxychains4

Mac

brew install proxychains-ng

Notice that the proxychains-ng installed using Homebrew on Mac does not work well right now (as of 2019-03-07). An alternative way is to use proxychains via Docker on Mac. The Docker image dclong/jupyterhub-ds has proxychains (NOT proxychains-ng) installed.

Syntax

proxychains4 [--help] [-q] [-f config_file] program_name [arguments]
--help: show the help doc.
-q makes proxychains quiet - this overrides the config setting
-f allows one to manually specify a configfile to use

Use Case of ProxyChains

There are multiple typical use cases of ProxyChains. First, ProxyChains can be used to circumstance a firewall through a single proxy. In this case, there can only be 1 proxy defined for ProxyChains and it is best to specify the strict_chain option for ProxyChains.

strict_chain
quiet_mode
tcp_read_time_out 15000
tcp_connect_time_out 8000
localnet 127.0.0.1/255.0.0.0

[ProxyList]
socks5     127.0.0.1 1080

Second, ProxyChains can be used to cirumstance a firewall through a chain of proxies (in a certain order). In this situation, a single proxy is not enough but you must redict your connection through multiple proxies in a certain order (a chain of proxies). You have to list the proxies to use in the order you want to connect and specify the strict_chain option. Different types of proxies can be used.

strict_chain
quiet_mode
tcp_read_time_out 15000
tcp_connect_time_out 8000
localnet 127.0.0.1/255.0.0.0

[ProxyList]
socks5     proxy_ip_1 1080
http     proxy_ip_2 1080
socks5     proxy_ip_3 1080

Last, ProxyChains can be used to hide your identity similar to what tor can do for you. In order to do this, you have to define multiple proxies and redirect your connection through a chain of those proxies (in random order). You have to specify the dynamic_chain or random_chain option.

dynamic_chain
quiet_mode
tcp_read_time_out 15000
tcp_connect_time_out 8000
localnet 127.0.0.1/255.0.0.0

[ProxyList]
socks5     proxy_ip_1 1080
http     proxy_ip_2 1080
socks5     proxy_ip_3 1080

Tricks and Traps

  1. ProxyChains supports only IP PORT but not DNS_NAME PORT now. Notably, 127.0.0.1 is OK but not localhost. For more details, please refer to the issue How to specify server by DOMAIN PORT not IP PORT? .

  2. There is no special requirement on the SSH configuration file ($HOME/.ssh/config).

  3. socks5 is prefer to socks4 when you use a socks proxy (SSH tunnel).

Example of ProxyChains Configuration

strict_chain
quiet_mode
tcp_read_time_out 15000
tcp_connect_time_out 8000
localnet 127.0.0.1/255.0.0.0

[ProxyList]
socks5     127.0.0.1 1080

Error Message

  1. SSH Configuration

    muxserver_listen bind(): No such file or directory

    This is probably due to configuration of SSH. For example, if you have the following line in the config file for SSH, you have to make sure that the directory ~/.ssh/control exists.

    ControlPath ~/.ssh/control/ssh_%h

  2. Shell Alias

    [proxychains] config file found: /home/dclong/.proxychains/proxychains.conf [proxychains] preloading /usr/local/lib/libproxychains4.so proxychains can't load process....: No such file or directory

    It is possibly due to alias used with ProxyChains. For example, I have the alias defined.

    alias ssh.analytics='ssh analytics_server_ip'

    proxychains4 ssh.analytics throws the above error message while proxychains4 ssh analytics_server_ip works well.

  3. There seems to be an issue if ProxyChains is directly in a VM, but it works well if used in a Docker on the VM ...

Advanced Discussions

How to specify server by DOMAIN PORT not IP PORT?

Use Different Proxies for Different Servers

ProxyChains does not support configuring different proxies for different servers directly, however, tinyproxy can be configured to use different upstream proxies for different destinations, and you can run tinyproxy on localhost and put its address into your proxychains configuration.

References

Comments