Highlights

Some key highlights of Dante include:

• Distributed with a liberal license (BSD/CMU-type)
• Multi-layer access controls.
• Extensive logging possibilities.
• Allows server applications to be socksified.
• Can socksify most programs at runtime without requiring recompilation.
• Interaction with libwrap (tcp wrappers).
• Can spawn external programs and provide them with endpoint information.
• Bandwidth usage control (via module Bandwidth).
• Port/redirection control (via module Redirect).
• Supports server-chaining, currently for TCP Connect.
• Control over number of client sessions (via module Session).

Supported protocols

The current version implements the following standards/RFCs/drafts:

Socks protocol version 4.

This protocol is found in the socks4 package and allows relaying of TCP based applications, but not UDP.

RFC1928:

Socks protocol version 5. This is current version of the socks protocol. Dante slightly extends RFC1928 by adding an extension which provides a more generic bind() functionality allowing servers to accepts connections through the socks server.

RFC1929

Username/Password authentication for socks v5.

RFC1961

GSS-API based authentication for socks v5.

http proxy

Version 1.1.3 added support for sending client requests through a web cache/proxy such as squid. The use of bind(2) is not possible through a http proxy.

Future plans

This sections gives a overview over the current plans for adding new features to the Dante package.

If you wish to finance development of these or other features, please contact us.

Recently completed

• GSS-API support.
• Session control (via module Session).
• Server-chaining.
• Bandwidth usage control (via module Bandwidth).
• Port/redirection control (via module Redirect).

Planned in the near future

These changes are at the top of the list:

• LDAP support, integrated with Kerberos.

Desired features

The items below are all desired, but not currently being worked on. See the survey for more information about them and how you can influence their priority.

• IPv6 support/gateway.
• BSD authentication.
• SSL authentication.
• OTP authentication.
• OS performance improvements (splice(2)).
• Loadbalancing/failover support.
• Protocol decoding/scripting.
• OS X port.
• SCO port.
• SOCKS V6.
• Client API/library.
• Server chaining (UDP support).
• Traceroute/improved UDP support.
• Automatic socksification of network connections without using SOCKS client.
• Improved documentation.

Bugs reported for the current stable release

Application compatibility/portability

The socks libraries should work with most applications without modifications, but there might be problems, either due to limitations in the software or in the socks protocol.

Platform specific

• There are problems with libtool on OS X; results in compilation problems.