Most of the time when you are using a public network, you are behind some kind of firewall or proxy. One of their purpose is to constrain you to only use certain kind of protocols and consult only a subset of the web.

Nowadays, the most widespread protocol is http and is de facto allowed by third party equipment.

Wstunnel uses the websocket protocol which is compatible with http in order to bypass firewalls and proxies. Wstunnel allows you to tunnel whatever traffic you want and access whatever resources/site you need.

My inspiration came from this project but as I don’t want to install npm and nodejs to use this tool, I remade it in Haskell Rust and improved it.

What To Expect:

  • Easy to use
  • Good error messages and debug information
  • Static forward and reverse tunneling (TCP, UDP, Unix socket, Stdio)
  • Dynamic tunneling (TCP, UDP Socks5 proxy and Transparent Proxy)
  • Support for http proxy (when behind one)
  • Support of proxy protocol
  • Support for tls/https server with certificates auto-reload (with embedded self-signed certificate, or your own)
  • Support of mTLS with certificates auto-reload – documentation here
  • Support IPv6
  • Support for Websocket and HTTP2 as transport protocol (websocket is more performant)
  • Standalone binaries (so just cp it where you want) here

Note

v7.0.0 is a complete rewrite of wstunnel in Rust and is not compatible with previous version. Previous code in Haskell can be found on branch

What to expect from previous version:

  • More throughput and less jitter due to Haskell GC. Most of you will not care, as it was performant enough already. But you can now saturate a gigabit ethernet card with a single connection
  • Command line is more homogeneous/has better UX. All tunnel can be specified multiple times
  • Tunnel protocol tries to look like normal traffic, to avoid being flagged
  • Support of reverse tunneling
  • New bug, it is a rewrite (╯’□’)╯︵ ┻━┻ ¯\(ツ)/¯
  • Mainly for me to ease the maintenance of the project. I don’t do a lot of haskell nowadays and it was harder for me to keep maintening the project over time, as I get lost in touch of the Haskell ecosystem and new release.
  • Armv7 build (aka raspberry pi), as new version of GHC (Haskell compiler) dropped its support

Command Line

Usage: wstunnel client [OPTIONS] <ws[s]|http[s]://wstunnel.server.com[:port]>

Arguments:
  <ws[s]|http[s]://wstunnel.server.com[:port]>
          Address of the wstunnel server
          You can either use websocket or http2 as transport protocol. Use websocket if you are unsure.
          Example: For websocket with TLS wss://wstunnel.example.com or without ws://wstunnel.example.com
                   For http2 with TLS https://wstunnel.example.com or without http://wstunnel.example.com
          
          *WARNING* HTTP2 as transport protocol is harder to make it works because:
            - If you are behind a (reverse) proxy/CDN they are going to buffer the whole request before forwarding it to the server
              Obviously, this is not going to work for tunneling traffic
            - if you have wstunnel behind a reverse proxy, most of them (i.e: nginx) are going to turn http2 request into http1
              This is not going to work, because http1 does not support streaming naturally
          The only way to make it works with http2 is to have wstunnel directly exposed to the internet without any reverse proxy in front of it

Options:
  -L, --local-to-remote <{tcp,udp,socks5,stdio,unix}://[BIND:]PORT:HOST:PORT>
          Listen on local and forwards traffic from remote. Can be specified multiple times
          examples:
          'tcp://1212:google.com:443'      =>       listen locally on tcp on port 1212 and forward to google.com on port 443
          'tcp://2:n.lan:4?proxy_protocol' =>       listen locally on tcp on port 2 and forward to n.lan on port 4
                                                    Send a proxy protocol header v2 when establishing connection to n.lan
          
          'udp://1212:1.1.1.1:53'          =>       listen locally on udp on port 1212 and forward to cloudflare dns 1.1.1.1 on port 53
          'udp://1212:1.1.1.1:53?timeout_sec=10'    timeout_sec on udp force close the tunnel after 10sec. Set it to 0 to disable the timeout [default: 30]
          
          'socks5://[::1]:1212'            =>       listen locally with socks5 on port 1212 and forward dynamically requested tunnel
          
          'tproxy+tcp://[::1]:1212'        =>       listen locally on tcp on port 1212 as a *transparent proxy* and forward dynamically requested tunnel
          'tproxy+udp://[::1]:1212?timeout_sec=10'  listen locally on udp on port 1212 as a *transparent proxy* and forward dynamically requested tunnel
                                                    linux only and requires sudo/CAP_NET_ADMIN
          
          'stdio://google.com:443'         =>       listen for data from stdio, mainly for `ssh -o ProxyCommand="wstunnel client --log-lvl=off -L stdio://%h:%p ws://localhost:8080" my-server`
          
          'unix:///tmp/wstunnel.sock:g.com:443' =>  listen for data from unix socket of path /tmp/wstunnel.sock and forward to g.com:443

  -R, --remote-to-local <{tcp,udp,socks5,unix}://[BIND:]PORT:HOST:PORT>
          Listen on remote and forwards traffic from local. Can be specified multiple times. Only tcp is supported
          examples:
          'tcp://1212:google.com:443'      =>     listen on server for incoming tcp cnx on port 1212 and forward to google.com on port 443 from local machine
          'udp://1212:1.1.1.1:53'          =>     listen on server for incoming udp on port 1212 and forward to cloudflare dns 1.1.1.1 on port 53 from local machine
          'socks5://[::1]:1212'            =>     listen on server for incoming socks5 request on port 1212 and forward dynamically request from local machine
          'unix://wstunnel.sock:g.com:443' =>     listen on server for incoming data from unix socket of path wstunnel.sock and forward to g.com:443 from local machine

      --no-color <NO_COLOR>
          Disable color output in logs
          
          [env: NO_COLOR=]

      --socket-so-mark <INT>
          (linux only) Mark network packet with SO_MARK sockoption with the specified value.
          You need to use {root, sudo, capabilities} to run wstunnel when using this option

  -c, --connection-min-idle <INT>
          Client will maintain a pool of open connection to the server, in order to speed up the connection process.
          This option set the maximum number of connection that will be kept open.
          This is useful if you plan to create/destroy a lot of tunnel (i.e: with socks5 to navigate with a browser)
          It will avoid the latency of doing tcp + tls handshake with the server
          
          [default: 0]

      --nb-worker-threads <INT>
          *WARNING* The flag does nothing, you need to set the env variable *WARNING*
          Control the number of threads that will be used.
          By default, it is equal the number of cpus
          
          [env: TOKIO_WORKER_THREADS=]

      --log-lvl <LOG_LEVEL>
          Control the log verbosity. i.e: TRACE, DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR, OFF
          for more details: https://docs.rs/tracing-subscriber/latest/tracing_subscriber/filter/struct.EnvFilter.html#example-syntax
          
          [env: RUST_LOG=]
          [default: INFO]

      --tls-sni-override <DOMAIN_NAME>
          Domain name that will be used as SNI during TLS handshake
          Warning: If you are behind a CDN (i.e: Cloudflare) you must set this domain also in the http HOST header.
                   or it will be flagged as fishy and your request rejected

      --tls-sni-disable
          Disable sending SNI during TLS handshake
          Warning: Most reverse proxies rely on it

      --tls-verify-certificate
          Enable TLS certificate verification.
          Disabled by default. The client will happily connect to any server with self-signed certificate.

  -p, --http-proxy <USER:PASS@HOST:PORT>
          If set, will use this http proxy to connect to the server
          
          [env: HTTP_PROXY=]

      --http-proxy-login <LOGIN>
          If set, will use this login to connect to the http proxy. Override the one from --http-proxy
          
          [env: WSTUNNEL_HTTP_PROXY_LOGIN=]

      --http-proxy-password <PASSWORD>
          If set, will use this password to connect to the http proxy. Override the one from --http-proxy
          
          [env: WSTUNNEL_HTTP_PROXY_PASSWORD=]

  -P, --http-upgrade-path-prefix <HTTP_UPGRADE_PATH_PREFIX>
          Use a specific prefix that will show up in the http path during the upgrade request.
          Useful if you need to route requests server side but don't have vhosts
          
          [env: WSTUNNEL_HTTP_UPGRADE_PATH_PREFIX=]
          [default: v1]

      --http-upgrade-credentials <USER[:PASS]>
          Pass authorization header with basic auth credentials during the upgrade request.
          If you need more customization, you can use the http_headers option.

      --websocket-ping-frequency-sec <seconds>
          Frequency at which the client will send websocket ping to the server.
          
          [default: 30]

      --websocket-mask-frame
          Enable the masking of websocket frames. Default is false
          Enable this option only if you use unsecure (non TLS) websocket server, and you see some issues. Otherwise, it is just overhead.

  -H, --http-headers <HEADER_NAME: HEADER_VALUE>
          Send custom headers in the upgrade request
          Can be specified multiple time

      --http-headers-file <FILE_PATH>
          Send custom headers in the upgrade request reading them from a file.
          It overrides http_headers specified from command line.
          File is read everytime and file format must contain lines with `HEADER_NAME: HEADER_VALUE`

      --tls-certificate <FILE_PATH>
          [Optional] Certificate (pem) to present to the server when connecting over TLS (HTTPS).
          Used when the server requires clients to authenticate themselves with a certificate (i.e. mTLS).
          The certificate will be automatically reloaded if it changes

      --tls-private-key <FILE_PATH>
          [Optional] The private key for the corresponding certificate used with mTLS.
          The certificate will be automatically reloaded if it changes



SERVER
Usage: wstunnel server [OPTIONS] <ws[s]://0.0.0.0[:port]>

Arguments:
  <ws[s]://0.0.0.0[:port]>
          Address of the wstunnel server to bind to
          Example: With TLS wss://0.0.0.0:8080 or without ws://[::]:8080
          
          The server is capable of detecting by itself if the request is websocket or http2. So you don't need to specify it.

Options:
      --socket-so-mark <INT>
          (linux only) Mark network packet with SO_MARK sockoption with the specified value.
          You need to use {root, sudo, capabilities} to run wstunnel when using this option

      --websocket-ping-frequency-sec <seconds>
          Frequency at which the server will send websocket ping to client.

      --no-color <NO_COLOR>
          Disable color output in logs
          
          [env: NO_COLOR=]

      --websocket-mask-frame
          Enable the masking of websocket frames. Default is false
          Enable this option only if you use unsecure (non TLS) websocket server, and you see some issues. Otherwise, it is just overhead.

      --nb-worker-threads <INT>
          *WARNING* The flag does nothing, you need to set the env variable *WARNING*
          Control the number of threads that will be used.
          By default, it is equal the number of cpus
          
          [env: TOKIO_WORKER_THREADS=]

      --restrict-to <DEST:PORT>
          Server will only accept connection from the specified tunnel information.
          Can be specified multiple time
          Example: --restrict-to "google.com:443" --restrict-to "localhost:22"

      --dns-resolver <DNS_RESOLVER>
          Dns resolver to use to lookup ips of domain name
          This option is not going to work if you use transparent proxy
          Can be specified multiple time
          Example:
           dns://1.1.1.1 for using udp
           dns+https://1.1.1.1 for using dns over HTTPS
           dns+tls://8.8.8.8 for using dns over TLS
          To use libc resolver, use
          system://0.0.0.0

      --log-lvl <LOG_LEVEL>
          Control the log verbosity. i.e: TRACE, DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR, OFF
          for more details: https://docs.rs/tracing-subscriber/latest/tracing_subscriber/filter/struct.EnvFilter.html#example-syntax
          
          [env: RUST_LOG=]
          [default: INFO]

  -r, --restrict-http-upgrade-path-prefix <RESTRICT_HTTP_UPGRADE_PATH_PREFIX>
          Server will only accept connection from if this specific path prefix is used during websocket upgrade.
          Useful if you specify in the client a custom path prefix, and you want the server to only allow this one.
          The path prefix act as a secret to authenticate clients
          Disabled by default. Accept all path prefix. Can be specified multiple time
          
          [env: WSTUNNEL_RESTRICT_HTTP_UPGRADE_PATH_PREFIX=]

      --restrict-config <RESTRICT_CONFIG>
          Path to the location of the restriction yaml config file.
          Restriction file is automatically reloaded if it changes

      --tls-certificate <FILE_PATH>
          [Optional] Use custom certificate (pem) instead of the default embedded self-signed certificate.
          The certificate will be automatically reloaded if it changes

      --tls-private-key <FILE_PATH>
          [Optional] Use a custom tls key (pem, ec, rsa) that the server will use instead of the default embedded one
          The private key will be automatically reloaded if it changes

      --tls-client-ca-certs <FILE_PATH>
          [Optional] Enables mTLS (client authentication with certificate). Argument must be PEM file
          containing one or more certificates of CA's of which the certificate of clients needs to be signed with.
          The ca will be automatically reloaded if it changes

For more information click here.

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