Using the Skywire SOCKS5 proxy client

The following wiki documentation exists on the SOCKS5 proxy: - Skywire SOCKS5 Proxy User Guide - SSH over SOCKS5 Proxy

The main difference between the VPN and the SOCKS5 proxy is that the proxy is configured per application while the VPN wraps the connections for the whole machine.

The socks client usage (from skywire cli) is similar to the VPN, though the skywire cli subcommands and flags do not currently match from the one application to the other. This will be rectified.

To use the SOCKS5 proxy client via skywire cli:

skywire cli proxy list

This will query the service discovery for a list of visor public keys which are running the proxy server. sd.skycoin.com/api/services?type=proxy

Sample output:
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...

Select a key and start the proxy with:

skywire cli proxy start --pk <public-key>

View the status of the proxy:

skywire cli proxy status

Check the IP address of the connection — for example, using curl via the socks5 proxy connection:

curl -Lx socks5h://127.0.0.1:1080 http://ip.skycoin.com/ | jq

The connection may be consumed in a web browser via direct proxy configuration in browsers which support it, or using extensions such as foxyproxy.

The connection may also be consumed in the terminal by setting ALL_PROXY environmental variable, or via the specific method used by a certain application.

Examples of ssh over the socks5 proxy:

Using openbsd-netcat:

ssh user@host -p 22 -o "ProxyCommand=nc -X 5 -x 127.0.0.1:1080 %h %p"

Using ncat from nmap:

ssh user@host -p 22 -o "ProxyCommand=ncat --proxy-type socks5 --proxy 127.0.0.1:1080 %h %p"

Stop the socks5 proxy client:

skywire cli proxy stop