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Linux as a SOCKS client

From Phoenix_II on Sun, 20 Feb 2000

Hey answerguy!!

I have a problem here. First of all, I am brand spanking new to Linux. I have a Win98SE box and a Linux Mandrake 6.0 box. The Win98 box has two network cards, one is connected to a LAN and the other to the Linux box via crossover cable. I just installed winproxy on the win box and am trying to get the Linux box to "notice" the proxy so I can get HTTP, FTP and so forth, to the internet through the win box. the winproxy has "CERN HTTP," FTP, Telnet, "SOCKS 4 & 5," DNS, DHCP, and Transparent Proxy capabilities and all the instruction is for if I want to connect another win box to it. Do you think you can help me out? Thanks, Phoenix

Well, that's a backwards way to do it. Usually you'd use the Linux box as a proxy server and use the MS-Windows boxes as the clients. That's because Linux is much more stable, and secure, requires much less system overhead, and has much more flexible IP filtering, routing and masquerading control.

However, to make your Linux system into a SOCKS client you can install the socks-client RPMs and modify the /etc/libsocks5.conf. Once this is done all of the normal TCP/IP client software on your system should automatically use the proxy according to the configuration.

I did provide a more extensive discussion of this process and the many other options available back in issue 36

"Linux as Router and Proxy Server: HOWTO?"

http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue36/tag/21.html

That contains a sample libsocks5.conf file and a bit of explanation on what the fields mean.

(Some software, notably your Netscape Navigator/Communicator will have to be separately configured to use the proxy. Just hunt down the appropriate dialog boxes through the program's UI --- Edit, Preferences for Netscape, etc).

Copyright © 2000, James T. Dennis
Published in The Linux Gazette Issue 51 March 2000

HTML transformation by Heather Stern of Tuxtops, Inc., http://www.tuxtops.com/

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