proxychains-ng — Docs

Install

shell

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install proxychains4

# Arch
sudo pacman -S proxychains-ng

# macOS (Homebrew)
brew install proxychains-ng

# From source
git clone https://github.com/haad/proxychains-ng
cd proxychains-ng && ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc && make && sudo make install

Configuration

The config file lives at /etc/proxychains4.conf (system-wide) or ~/.proxychains/proxychains4.conf (per-user). The per-user location takes precedence.

~/.proxychains/proxychains4.confshell

strict_chain
proxy_dns          # resolve DNS through the proxy, not locally
quiet_mode

tcp_read_time_out    15000
tcp_connect_time_out  8000

[ProxyList]
# type  host                        port  user  pass
http    gw.justproxies.online       8080  USER  PASS

proxy_dns prevents DNS leaks — without it your resolver sees the hostnames even though the connections go through the proxy. Always enable it.

The four modes at the top of the config control chain behaviour:

strict_chain — every connection must go through the whole list in order. Fails loudly if the proxy is unreachable. Use this.
dynamic_chain — skips dead proxies silently. Useful for a list of fallback proxies.
random_chain — picks a random proxy from the list per connection. Not useful with a single entry.

Using with system tools

Prefix any command with proxychains4. The tool intercepts the binary's socket calls at runtime.

shell

# Check your exit IP
proxychains4 curl -s https://api.ipify.org

# Download a file
proxychains4 wget -q -O archive.tar.gz https://example.com/archive.tar.gz

# Git clone through the proxy
proxychains4 git clone https://github.com/org/repo.git

# apt package update (useful on servers behind restrictive firewalls)
proxychains4 apt-get update

# pip install
proxychains4 pip install somepackage

# SSH to a remote host (TCP only)
proxychains4 ssh [email protected]

Quiet mode

Without quiet_mode in the config, proxychains4 prints a line to stderr for every connection it intercepts. Enable it to keep script output clean.

Caveats and limitations

UDP does not work through HTTP proxies. proxychains4 intercepts TCP only. DNS is handled via a special TCP trick when proxy_dns is on.
Statically linked binaries (Go programs, some system tools) bypass proxychains because they don't use the dynamic linker. For those, use environment variables: HTTP_PROXY and HTTPS_PROXY.
Root processes — sudo drops environment variables and library paths. Pass -E to preserve the environment, or prefix the sudo command itself with proxychains4.
Rotation — a single [ProxyList] entry with our gateway gives you IP rotation automatically because the gateway rotates on every connection. You don't need multiple proxy entries.

Alternate: environment variables for Go/static binariesshell

export HTTP_PROXY=http://USER:[email protected]:8080
export HTTPS_PROXY=http://USER:[email protected]:8080

# Now static-binary tools pick it up
./my-go-binary --target https://api.ipify.org