# SOCKSSocket working? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [March 10, 2010, 6:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sockssocket-working/184900 "2010-03-10T06:58:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ricardo\_Amorim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/9dc877/32.png) [@Ricardo\_Amorim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Ricardo_Amorim)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 6:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sockssocket-working/184900/1 "2010-03-10T06:58:25Z")
Hello, I compiled ruby-1.8.7-p249 with --enable-socks and package libsocks4 installed in Debian lenny. Well, i’m trying to get SOCKS working with Net::FTP. I started “ssh -N -D 8000 user@otherhostip” and configured SOCKS\_SERVER=127.0.0.1:8000. When i connect to a FTP server in irb, i can see the SOCKSSocket being initialized (@sock=#SOCKSSocket:0x0000000248aca0) but looking at ssh debug, it’s not using actually using SOCKS. Am i doing something wrong or it is not working? Thanks, mksm ---
**Author:** ![Ricardo\_Amorim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/9dc877/32.png) [@Ricardo\_Amorim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Ricardo_Amorim)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 12:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sockssocket-working/184900/2 "2010-03-10T12:03:59Z")
Ricardo Amorim wrote: > I compiled ruby-1.8.7-p249 with --enable-socks and package libsocks4 > installed in Debian lenny. > > Well, i’m trying to get SOCKS working with Net::FTP. I started “ssh -N > -D 8000 user@otherhostip” and configured SOCKS\_SERVER=127.0.0.1:8000. > When i connect to a FTP server in irb, i can see the SOCKSSocket being > initialized (@sock=#SOCKSSocket:0x0000000248aca0) but looking at ssh > debug, it’s not using actually using SOCKS. > > Am i doing something wrong or it is not working? I can’t answer your question directly, as I tend to use the Net::SSH::Proxy::SOCKS[45] classes supplied with Net::SSH (which may not be drop-in replacement in Net::FTP). However I can suggest some things to try: (1) run a standard ruby build under tsocks: ``` tsocks ruby myscript.rb ``` (then all socket calls are transparently socksified). Using tsocks is also a very good way to check that your ssh -D is working how you expect, since you can use it with any client such as ‘telnet’ (2) use ‘tcpdump -i lo tcp port 8000’ to see whether your ruby code is actually trying to use the socks server (3) try ENV[‘SOCKS\_SERVER’] = ‘127.0.0.1:8000’ (4) in your ruby build directory, look in ext/socket/mkmf.log Also when the compile is running, look for -DSOCKS on the gcc command line when building the socket extension. If it’s missing then there’s a problem. (5) give that you’re rebuilding ruby to get SOCKS support, it may be worth trying a socks5 library. socks4 is very ancient and it wouldn’t surprise me if it hadn’t been well tested in a while. ---
**Author:** ![Ricardo\_Amorim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/9dc877/32.png) [@Ricardo\_Amorim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Ricardo_Amorim)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2010, 9:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sockssocket-working/184900/3 "2010-03-11T21:14:49Z")
(1) It works with tsocks. I tested using irb without setting SOCKS\_SERVER and worked just fine: 16:58:54 libtsocks(12207): Call to connect received on completed request 3 =\> #\ (2) It doesnt show up in tcpdump. Actually, it seems that Net:::FTP only creates a SOCKSSocket but doesn’t use SOCKS\_SERVER at all. (3) Tried setting it using export and inside the script, doesnt work either way. (4) Yep, it is using the SOCKS flag. (5) I’ve searched for a SOCKS5 package in debian but the only one i’ve found is this libsocks4. I wonder if it supports SOCKS5 as well or do i have to manually compile/install one. Anyways, i’m just testing Net::FTP as it seems as the only one that supports SOCKSSocket. I actually need to use SOCKS to do HTTP requests. Would Net::SSH::Proxy::SOCKS help me with that? Regards, mksm ---
**Author:** ![Ricardo\_Amorim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/9dc877/32.png) [@Ricardo\_Amorim](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Ricardo_Amorim)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2010, 9:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/sockssocket-working/184900/4 "2010-03-11T21:35:54Z")
Ricardo Amorim wrote: > Actually, it seems that Net:::FTP > only creates a SOCKSSocket but doesn’t use SOCKS\_SERVER at all. Odd. Maybe it’s worth experimenting with SOCKSSocket directly. Documentation is thin on the ground though. [http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/320460](http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/320460) > Anyways, i’m just testing Net::FTP as it seems as the only one that > supports SOCKSSocket. I actually need to use SOCKS to do HTTP > requests. Would Net::SSH::Proxy::SOCKS help me with that? Possibly. (1) If your HTTP library lets you pass in an already-opened socket, it will work fine. (For example, Net::Telnet lets you do that, using the “Proxy” option) (2) If your HTTP library lets you pass in an object K, and it open the socket by calling K.open(host,port), then it will work. (With some frigging you might even be able to use a mocking library like Mocha to intercept TCPSocket) Looking at the source of Net::HTTP, it appears to be hardcoded to TCPSocket.open, unless you want to monkeypatch the ‘connect’ method. But there are other client libraries out there. For example: ``` gem install httpclient ``` A quick look suggests you might be able to override the (short) create\_socket method to do what you want. But if it all just works with tsocks, maybe that’s the easiest way to go.