7 ms·

Show HN: Socks Protocol Version 5 Library in Go

54 points by txthinking 7y ago

koblas 7y ago
I will always say this was a complete hack to a specific time in history. Having SOCKS in your toolbelt of tricks is always handy and can make hard things surprisingly easy. Last time was I needed to tunnel a request from my development environment into a production VPN to contact a service which had IP access restrictions.
- bogomipz 7y ago
  I'm curious was this a situation where ssh port-forwarding would not have worked?
  - koblas 7y ago
    It was an SSL connection with a custom cert chain. So I could easily wrap the HTTP side of things with a SOCKS forwarder which then SOCKS proxied into the VPN and then back out to the other site. There might have been another way to do it, but given that wrapping HTTP in a SOCKS proxy is easy and ssh has a built in SOCKS proxy, this was quick win. ps. It's SOCKS and not Socks - for the subject line of this story.
  - znpy 7y ago
    the thing is, port forwarding works for a specific port, whereas socksproxy is a general tunnel. if you point firefox to use a remote ssh host as socks proxy then you can browse internet as if you were in the ssh host subnet. it's basically a poor man's vpn, but if all you do is www browsing it works perfectly.
  - e12e 7y ago
    Just a note: if you're forwarding for something that can use socks5, ssh can do that (can be used to share an outgoing VPN from a server you can ssh into, for example - by pointing your browser to your local ssh socks5 proxy. Or for testing a rest/soap/graphql service that's not exposed to the internet). https://man.openbsd.org/ssh#D https://man.openbsd.org/ssh#D
cpach 7y ago
Honest question: What do people use Socks for? Personally I haven’t used it since Firesheep...
- znpy 7y ago
  it's a no-conf-required vpn: ssh -D 8000 -q -C -N user@sshhost point firefox to use localhost:8000 as socksproxy, and all your internet traffic appears to have originate from sshhost.
  - Joker_vD 7y ago
    Chain three of them together, and you have a TOR-like circuit. Of course, since SSH doesn't work as a SOCKS5 client (last time I checked, at least), you'd have to forward some local ports to remote 22's and point SSH clients at localhost (forcing them to check the specific host key is also a fun challenge). Sadly, SSH doesn't support using port 0 for chosing a random local port. ssh -L 60001:host2:22 -N user1@host1 & ssh -L 60002:host3:22 -p 60001 -N user2@localhost & ssh -D 8000 -p 60002 -N user3@localhost &
    - wahern 7y ago
      > SSH doesn't work as a SOCKS5 client 1) That's what the ProxyCommand config option is for. Most systems will have netcat or nc installed which do provide SOCKS client support 2) Or just use the -J option argument, which IIRC was originally implemented as a transformation to -oProxyCommand='ssh ... [netcat/nc]' but now is a simple transformation to the newer -W option argument, which doesn't depend on netcat/nc being installed on the intermediate host.
      - Joker_vD 7y ago
        When I was looking into this problem neither -J nor -W options existed (that was a really long time ago).
  - joflicu 7y ago
    What if I have a bash script that needs to contact sshhost - how do I point that script to localhost:8000?
knorker 7y ago
If I only want the client side, does this add anything over https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/net/proxy https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/net/proxy ?
golergka 7y ago
Next time someone says to me that language's popularity doesn't matter for it's utility, I'll remember how Go's socks library appears on the front page of HN, while my pull request the Haskell's socks library (which implements the most basic feature that author added to the top of TODO list himself) is sitting unmerged and uncommented now for almost a year.(1) (If I sound bitter it's because I am.) Seriously though, such "boring" libraries that you just need in your toolbox are a great way to evaluate the health of the whole ecosystem. [1][https://github.com/vincenthz/hs-socks/pull/24 https://github.com/vincenthz/hs-socks/pull/24]
- zadokshi 7y ago
  Maybe the author died?
therein 7y ago
Last time I needed a SOCKS5 server + client in Go, I remember using github.com/getlantern/go-socks5. What does this offer above that?

54 points by txthinking 7y ago

I will always say this was a complete hack to a specific time in history. Having SOCKS in your toolbelt of tricks is always handy and can make hard things surprisingly easy. Last time was I needed to tunnel a request from my development environment into a production VPN to contact a service which had IP access restrictions.

bogomipz 7y ago
I'm curious was this a situation where ssh port-forwarding would not have worked?
- koblas 7y ago
  It was an SSL connection with a custom cert chain. So I could easily wrap the HTTP side of things with a SOCKS forwarder which then SOCKS proxied into the VPN and then back out to the other site. There might have been another way to do it, but given that wrapping HTTP in a SOCKS proxy is easy and ssh has a built in SOCKS proxy, this was quick win. ps. It's SOCKS and not Socks - for the subject line of this story.
- znpy 7y ago
  the thing is, port forwarding works for a specific port, whereas socksproxy is a general tunnel. if you point firefox to use a remote ssh host as socks proxy then you can browse internet as if you were in the ssh host subnet. it's basically a poor man's vpn, but if all you do is www browsing it works perfectly.
- e12e 7y ago
  Just a note: if you're forwarding for something that can use socks5, ssh can do that (can be used to share an outgoing VPN from a server you can ssh into, for example - by pointing your browser to your local ssh socks5 proxy. Or for testing a rest/soap/graphql service that's not exposed to the internet). https://man.openbsd.org/ssh#D https://man.openbsd.org/ssh#D

cpach 7y ago

Honest question: What do people use Socks for? Personally I haven’t used it since Firesheep...

znpy 7y ago
it's a no-conf-required vpn: ssh -D 8000 -q -C -N user@sshhost point firefox to use localhost:8000 as socksproxy, and all your internet traffic appears to have originate from sshhost.
- Joker_vD 7y ago
  Chain three of them together, and you have a TOR-like circuit. Of course, since SSH doesn't work as a SOCKS5 client (last time I checked, at least), you'd have to forward some local ports to remote 22's and point SSH clients at localhost (forcing them to check the specific host key is also a fun challenge). Sadly, SSH doesn't support using port 0 for chosing a random local port. ssh -L 60001:host2:22 -N user1@host1 & ssh -L 60002:host3:22 -p 60001 -N user2@localhost & ssh -D 8000 -p 60002 -N user3@localhost &
  - wahern 7y ago
    > SSH doesn't work as a SOCKS5 client 1) That's what the ProxyCommand config option is for. Most systems will have netcat or nc installed which do provide SOCKS client support 2) Or just use the -J option argument, which IIRC was originally implemented as a transformation to -oProxyCommand='ssh ... [netcat/nc]' but now is a simple transformation to the newer -W option argument, which doesn't depend on netcat/nc being installed on the intermediate host.
    - Joker_vD 7y ago
      When I was looking into this problem neither -J nor -W options existed (that was a really long time ago).
- joflicu 7y ago
  What if I have a bash script that needs to contact sshhost - how do I point that script to localhost:8000?

knorker 7y ago

If I only want the client side, does this add anything over https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/net/proxy https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/net/proxy ?

golergka 7y ago

Next time someone says to me that language's popularity doesn't matter for it's utility, I'll remember how Go's socks library appears on the front page of HN, while my pull request the Haskell's socks library (which implements the most basic feature that author added to the top of TODO list himself) is sitting unmerged and uncommented now for almost a year.(1) (If I sound bitter it's because I am.) Seriously though, such "boring" libraries that you just need in your toolbox are a great way to evaluate the health of the whole ecosystem. [1][https://github.com/vincenthz/hs-socks/pull/24 https://github.com/vincenthz/hs-socks/pull/24]

zadokshi 7y ago
Maybe the author died?

therein 7y ago

Last time I needed a SOCKS5 server + client in Go, I remember using github.com/getlantern/go-socks5. What does this offer above that?