phyxeld's Journal: Panther SOCKS configuration problem

I want to use Colloquy over an SSH socks proxy. (OpenSSH's client can provide a SOCKS4 proxy with the -D option). Mozilla and other programs can already use the proxy without trouble when configured to do so in their own prefs.

Colloquy wants me to enter the socks proxy into my system-wide preferences, instead of in it's own settings. Ok. This works. Colloquy will now use the system-specified SOCKS proxy on connections that I tell it to, and not use it on others. Cool.

The problem is this: if the SOCKS option is checked in system preferences, Safari can't not use it. And Safari seems to only speak SOCKS5. And OpenSSH only speaks SOCKS4. I don't really need Safari to browse through the proxy. But if I have the proxy enabled, Safari can't browse at all, due to it's apparent incompatibility with SOCKS4.

My objective here is to get Colloquy working over the proxy, and Safari working at all, simultaneously. Any suggestions?

open source

[Hes Nikke]

well, Colloquy _is_ open source [sourceforge.net], so you can, in theory roll your own version to use your own proxy (or thats what i would think)

I am only associated with them in that i provided most of the high level code to a competing IRC client (read: spit and polish) and have heard a lot about them. I'm pretty close to calling it quits after seeing what the latest version looks like!

Re:open source

[phyxeld]

I suppose I could... but patching programs that are actively developed is a pain. Assuming the upstream developers don't accept my patch, I'd have to start maintaining my own version, and I don't IRC enough for it to be worth my while.

Since apple's guidelines (stupidly, imho) tell developers that they should use the system wide settings for proxies, other programs are likely to be affected too. So what I'd like is a global fix that doesn't involve patching other people's software.

It would be cool to have

Re:open source

[imroy]

You could have a look at running your own SOCKS server like Dante [www.inet.no]. It implements both version 4 and 5 of the SOCKS protocol. The daemon doesn't communicate with other SOCKS proxies, but you could try to use the old LD_PRELOAD trick [www.inet.no] on the dante daemon itself and configure the "client" appropriately [www.inet.no]. Disclaimer: I have no idea how well this Linux software will run on Max OS/X. Certainly better than Windows :)