LAN behind proxy servers
Many colleges have Local Area Networks that are behind a proxy server. And the proxy server filters some ports, websites etc. Sometimes there are DNS resolution issues. For instance, we want to login via ssh to a free shell account on some server on the internet. Or we want to connect to some repository for downloading software, or join some P2P network for file sharing (there are many other such instances where I faced problems). When we try to conect to the server, the software we are using is not able to resolve the IP, or something is filtered by the proxy server, and we are at a loss how to get our work done.
This is where 'proxychains' come to the rescue. Proxychains is a very cool open source software. It allows us to run any program (including servers) from behind a proxy. Some of the interesting features (from the proxychains page in sourceforge) are:
* Allows TCP and DNS tunneling through proxies.
* Supports HTTP, SOCKS4 and SOCKS5 proxy servers.
* Different proxy types can be mixed in the same chain.
* Proxy chain: user-defined list of proxies chained together.
* Run any program (including servers) from behind a proxy server.
* Access the Internet from behind a restrictive firewall.
* Source IP masquerade.
* SSH tunneling through proxy servers.
* Access Intranets from outside.
It's pretty useful. It's simple to install
# ./configure
# make
# make install
and configure
# vim /etc/proxychains.conf
by editing the chain policy, and specifying the proxy server URL, port and username and password (if any).
Using it is very simple
# proxychains <any_application_you_want_to_run>
e.g.
# proxychains deluge
# proxychains ssh some.ssh.server.org -l kraesen
# proxychains pkgadd -d http://install/something.pkg
# proxyresolve sun.com
Hope you will find this little information useful. Any comments, questions, feel free and fire them at me.
Posted at 02:59PM Mar 19, 2009 by Soraisham Okendro in Sun | Comments[0]