Installation and Configuration of Dante on Debian/Ubuntu with `apt`

Instructions for installing and configuring a Dante SOCKS5 proxy on Debian/Ubuntu on the command line.

The following instructions are for Debian and Ubuntu — for CentOS, RedHat, AWS EC2 and other Linux distributions that use yum as a package manager please follow these instructions.

If you are still looking for a server for this project, I can recommend the cx31 server for 4.51 EUR/month with 20TB traffic volume from the European provider HETZNER CLOUD.

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Step 1 — Install danted

Project homepage: https://www.inet.no/dante/

Log into your Linux server and get root privileges:

sudo -i

Install with apt:

apt update
apt install dante-server

Info: After installation dante does not work yet and will throw errors — it has not been configured yet!

Verify the installation:

danted -v

Info: In Ubuntu and other distributions danted can also be called sockd.

Edit the config file with nano or vi:

nano /etc/danted.conf

or

vi /etc/danted.conf

Set the following configuration. Replace 1.2.3.4 with your client IP or use 0.0.0.0/0 as wildcard (please consider your security concept!):

logoutput: stderr
logoutput: /var/log/danted.log
internal: eth0 port = 1080
external: eth0
socksmethod: username none #rfc931
client pass {
    from: 1.2.3.4/32 to: 0.0.0.0/0
    log: connect disconnect error
}
socks pass {
    from: 1.2.3.4/32 to: 0.0.0.0/0
    log: connect disconnect error
}

Start danted:

systemctl start danted

Check the status:

systemctl status danted

If desired, enable autostart:

systemctl enable danted

You can now connect to the SOCKS5 proxy via the public server IP on port 1080.

If you have chosen a server from HETZNER CLOUD, here is a detailed step by step Dante SOCKS5 Proxy installation guide tailored to Hetzner servers.

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Step 2 — Test the SOCKS5 Proxy

There are many ways to test the new SOCKS5 proxy.

Firefox: Settings → search for proxy → enter the SOCKS5 proxy address and port number. Open https://ipchicken.com and check the IP address.

Putty: Open Putty and click on Connection → Proxy → enter the SOCKS5 proxy address and port number. Open a SSH connection.

curl: This should return your public IP address:

curl -x socks5://<your_ip_server>:<your_danted_port> ifconfig.co

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