Soxy - Quick and easy SOCKS proxy management

Created by, Chris Kankiewicz & Charles Bock

Configuration

Download Soxy and extract the soxy file to your machine.

Copy the provided config.sample file to ~/.soxy/config and edit it for your configuration:

REMOTE_USER=your_username
REMOTE_HOST=target_hostname
REMOTE_PORT=22

LOCAL_PORT=1080

AUTO_RECONNECT=false

Make the soxy file executable by running:

chmod +x /path/to/soxy

Installation

Add a bash alias by adding the following to ~/.bash_aliases:

alias soxy='/path/to/soxy'

If you haven't already, you will also need to generate an RSA key pair with the following command:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "<your_hostname>"

Now copy your public key to the remote host with the following command:

ssh-copy-id user@example.com

You can now start the SOCKS proxy connection with the following command:

soxy start

Client Setup

Ubuntu

Navigate to [Gear Icon] -> System Settings -> Network. Select Network proxy from the left hand menu. Under the Method drop-down box, select Manual. For Socks Host enter localhost, and enter the port you used (default is 1080).

Firefox

From the Firefox menu navigate to Preferences -> Advanced -> Network (tab) then under the Connection heading click on the Settings button. In the menu that pops up select Manual proxy configuration. Now set the SOCKS Host to localhost and the corresponding Port to the port you specified (default is 1080).

Additionally, you can enable DNS request proxying in Firefox as well. To do so enter about:config into the address bar and hit go. If you get a warning about voiding your warranty don't panic, simply hit the I'll be careful, I promise! button to continue. Now enter network.proxy.socks_remote_dns into the Filter input box and double click the corresponding result to change the Value from false to true.

Chrome

You can use this great Plugin: Proxy SwitchyOmega

It's also possible to define black/white lists based on URL patterns and control exactly which route should be used (multiple proxies possible + direct).

Run on Start Up (Ubuntu)

You can configure Soxy to start at boot by adding it to Startup Applications in Ubuntu. Navigate to [Gear Icon] -> Startup Applications and click the Add button. For name enter "Soxy", then for Command put /your/path/to/soxy start and hit the Add button.

Now, whenever you first log into your system, Soxy will automatically start a SOCKS connection for you.

Cron job to check the connection periodically and re-connect

User cron jobs can be defined with crontab -e on most linux distributions. A possible setup could look like this:

  ## run every 10 minutes
  */10 * * * * soxy status

Make sure the script is in your $PATH or specify the path in the cron job.

If you want the script to attempt a re-connect as soon as the soxy status tells you that the connection is gone, you can set AUTO_RECONNECT=true in your ~/.soxy/config.

Usage

Start the SOCKS connection

soxy start

Stop the SOCKS connection

soxy stop

Restart the SOCKS connection (stops then starts)

soxy restart

Get the status of the SOCKS connection (and try to re-connect if AUTO_RECONNECT=true)

soxy status

Contact

If you have any questions or comments, please email me at: Chris@ChrisKankiewicz.com

To report a bug, visit the issue tracker on Github at: https://github.com/PHLAK/Soxy/issues

License

Copyright (c) 2013 Chris Kankewicz & Charles Bock

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.