Current Dante status
This page describes the current status of Dante. The latest public version
is Dante 1.4.4.
Highlights
Some key highlights of the features available in the Dante server include:
- 24/7 support available from the people who wrote it and know it best.
- Source code available under a liberal BSD/CMU-type license.
- Advanced access control mechanisms.
- Extensive logging possibilities.
- Network diagnosis and generation of alarms related to detected problems.
- IPv6 support.
- Supports GSS-API (Kerberos) based authentication and strong encryption.
- Supports server-chaining (currently only for TCP connect).
- Integrates with LDAP and Active Directory authorisation (via the LDAP module).
- Bandwidth management (via the Bandwidth module).
- Port control and redirection support (via the Redirect module).
- Session management and control.
- Compatible with Bloomberg clients.
Supported protocols
The Dante package consists of two parts: the client and the server.
The server supports SOCKS version 4 and version 5, while the client
library supports multiple proxy protocols.
The current standards/RFCs/drafts are implemented:
-
Socks protocol version 4:
- The first semi-official version of the SOCKS protocol, version 4.
Supports TCP, but not UDP.
- RFC1928:
- SOCKS protocol version 5. This is the current version of the SOCKS
protocol.
- RFC1929
- Username/password authentication for SOCKS version 5.
- RFC1961
- GSS-API based authentication for SOCKS version 5.
- UPnP
- The Dante client supports sending client requests
through a router with UPnP support. This type of router supports
bind(2)-ing of ports on the router, allowing incoming
requests to be received via the UPnP device. This feature requires the
miniupnp library by Thomas Bernard.
- HTTP proxy
- The Dante client supports sending client requests
through a web cache/proxy supporting the HTTP CONNECT command.
Note that only TCP connect is supported through a HTTP proxy.
Supported platforms
Dante should run on most Unix/Linux platforms. Windows is not
supported. At least the following are known to be supported:
- OpenBSD, FreeBSD
- Linux
- SunOS
- AIX
The following platforms are considered deprecated, and might no
longer work fully:
The Dante SOCKS client also supports cross compilation to
Android.
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 problems
- Dante 1.4 currently compiles on OS X, but there are problems with both
the client (socksify) and the server. The server problems appear
to be related to OS X bugs last checked, making the Dante server
close sessions prematurely due to occasionally problems with TCP
and EOF detection on OSX.
Desired features
This sections gives an overview over some of the features desired, but
still missing from Dante and not currently being worked on. If you wish
to finance development of these, or other features, please contact us.
Please see the survey for more information
and how you can influence the priority of new features.
- OS X port.
- OS performance improvements (e.g., splice(2)).
- Improved server-chaining support (UDP and scalability).
- Traceroute/improved UDP support.
- Transparent proxy functionality.
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