configure a SOCKS proxy server

Inspired by my wife's difficulty connecting to the internet due to new security policies at her organization, I decided to try a proxy to allow her to use Windows Live Messenger.


The Linux SOCKS proxy server implementation these days is made under the name DANTE

• edit the config file (/etc/socks/sockd.conf). 
• It is in this file logging is enabled via the syslog mechanism and internal and external addresses are bound. Whereas the internal bindings include a port specification, the external one does not.
   
• The comments are well formed I'd also spend a little time looking them over.
  
  The details:
  

  logoutput: syslog
  
  internal: eth1 port = 1080
  internal: 127.0.0.1 port = 1080
  
  external: 1.2.3.4
  # or
  external: eth0

  To achieve full access (no username/password).
  

  method: username none
  
  # Not using authentication, so unnecessary
  #user.privileged: proxy
  
  user.notprivileged: nobody

  The access controls for sockd daemon are last. They are checked against in the order they appear in the configuration file. Notice, don't open your proxy server to the wild world - you've been warned.The first three directives control which IP ranges that have accesss to the server.
  
  - The from: is were the details of the IPs are added. In my cause it is the IP space the clients live in.
  - The to: option is one of the IPs the proxy server is bound to that the given IP range can speak to. It is set to the addresses Dante/sockd is listening on.
  The last of the three drops any requests that don't match either of the first two directives.
  
  
  

  client pass {
  from:  192.168.0.0/16 port 1-65535 to: 0.0.0.0/0
  }
  
  client pass {
  from:  127.0.0.0/8 port 1-65535 to: 0.0.0.0/0
  }
  
  client block {
  from:  0.0.0.0/0 to: 0.0.0.0/0
  log: connect error
  }

  The next four configuration points control who 'routing'.
  - Requests from anywhere to the loopback addresses are dropped.
  - From the loopback addresses and 192.168.0.0/16 are allowed to communicated over tcp or udp protocols.
  - Finally, drop everything else. 
  
  

  block {
  from:  0.0.0.0/0 to: 127.0.0.0/8
  log: connect error
  }
  
  pass {
  from:  192.168.0.0/16 to: 0.0.0.0/0
  protocol: tcp udp
  }
  
  pass {
  from:  127.0.0.0/8 to: 0.0.0.0/0
  protocol: tcp udp
  }
  
  block {
  from:  0.0.0.0/0 to: 0.0.0.0/0
  log: connect error
  }

• Start Dante/sockd.
  

  sockd -V 
  sockd -d