Route a specific program's traffic through Tor without modifying or reconfiguring the program itself.
Chain multiple SOCKS5 proxies in sequence for multi-hop routing of a command-line tool's network traffic.
Redirect DNS lookups through a proxy to access Tor onion addresses from standard Linux applications.
Test how a service behaves from a different IP address by running it through a SOCKS proxy with proxychains.
Only works with dynamically linked programs, will not proxy shell scripts, statically compiled binaries, or programs that spawn many subprocesses.
proxychains-ng is a command-line tool that forces other programs to send their network traffic through one or more proxies. You run your program through proxychains, and it intercepts the network calls the program makes, rerouting them through SOCKS4, SOCKS5, or HTTP proxies that you configure in a text file. The program being proxied does not need to know anything about proxies, proxychains handles the redirection transparently. The tool works by using a technique called LD_PRELOAD, where a shared library is loaded before the program starts and replaces certain standard networking functions. Because of this approach, it only works with programs that are dynamically linked, meaning programs compiled in a standard way on Linux and other Unix-like systems. The README is direct about this: it calls the underlying mechanism "basically a hack," and notes that it will not work with scripts, programs that spawn many background processes, or programs that load their own libraries at runtime. For those cases, it suggests using a firewall-based solution instead. You can configure proxychains to chain multiple proxies together, routing your traffic through several hops before reaching the destination. The chain can be a fixed sequence, a random selection from a list, or a dynamic mode that automatically skips proxies that are not responding. DNS lookups can also be resolved through the proxy rather than using your local DNS server, which is useful for accessing Tor onion addresses. Supported platforms are Linux, BSD, Mac, and Haiku. Installation involves a standard configure, make, and make install sequence. The project is a continuation of the original proxychains project, which is no longer maintained. The README includes a prominent warning: this tool can be used to circumvent censorship, and doing so can be dangerous in certain countries. The authors recommend always verifying that your actual IP address is hidden before relying on proxychains for anything sensitive.
← rofl0r on gitmyhub — every repo by this author, as a profile.
Verify against the repo before relying on details.