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Setup Instructions for Tunneling Common Applications

Here are some instructions to help you setup and configure common applications that you might want to try and tunnel using the Firedrill client software. This is by no means an exhaustive list of applications that can be tunneled using Firedrill, but it should give you a flavour for the sorts of things that can be carried and hopefully allow you to get a feel for how to go about configuring other applications you might wish to tunnel.

In general, the simplest approach for tunneling any application with Firedrill is to run the Firedrill client software in SOCKS tunneling mode and then to configure the application you wish to tunnel to use the Firedrill client as a SOCKS proxy.

If the application you wish to tunnel does not support the SOCKS protocol then things may be a little trickier. You can always configure the Firedrill client to run in direct tunneling mode instead of SOCKS tunneling mode (as described here), but this will only work if the application to tunnel only uses a single TCP port (and obviously you will need to know which TCP port it uses plus the IP address of the destination server it will be trying to connect to). Alternatively, you can try to add SOCKS support to the application by using a 3rd party tool such as SocksCap (on Windows) or Socksify (on Linux). If you wish to try using such a tool then you should refer to the help/documentation for that tool for advice on how to use them, although an example of how to setup and use SocksCap 2.4 to tunnel an online poker client is shown below.

All the following examples assume that the application you will be tunneling supports the SOCKS protocol, either natively or via some other means. Also, the examples are for the given specific versions of the applications only. Other versions may require slightly different configuration steps (for example; certain options might have moved to another menu), but you should be able to use these examples as a good starting point.

NOTE: It may be necessary to quit and restart some applications before they will completely act on these configuration changes.

Example Application List

Internet Explorer

Select the "Internet Options" item from the "Tools" menu, you should be presented with a dialog box similar to that shown in Figure 1 below. Select the "Connections" tab and click on the "LAN Settings" button to bring up that configuration dialog.

Internet Explorer Figure 1 - The "Internet Options" dialog

In the "LAN Settings" dialog, enable the "Use a proxy server" check box and click on the "Advanced" button to bring up the proxy configuration dialog. See Figure 2 below.

Internet Explorer Figure 2 - The "LAN Settings" dialog

In the "Proxy Settings" dialog, set the SOCKS proxy address to be the explicit address 127.0.0.1 and the SOCKS port to be 1080, as shown in Figure 3 below. Accept these configuration settings by clicking "OK" on the configuration dialogs.

Internet Explorer Figure 3 - The "Proxy Settings" dialog

Firefox / Iceweasel

Select the "Preferences" item from the "Edit" menu, you should be presented with a dialog box similar to that shown in Figure 1 below. Select the "Advanced" tab at the top, and then the "Network" tab below that. Finally, press the "Connection Settings" button to edit the connection settings.

Firefox Figure 1 - The "Preferences" dialog

In the "Connection Settings" dialog, select the "Manual proxy configuration" radio button and set the SOCKS host to be the explicit address 127.0.0.1 and the SOCKS port to be 1080, as shown in Figure 2 below. For best results also ensure the SOCKS version radio button is set to SOCKS v5. Accept these configuration settings by clicking "OK" on the configuration dialogs.

NOTE: Ensure that there are no other proxy hosts specified for any protocols except our SOCKS proxy, in particular there must be no HTTP proxy specified. If you need to use a HTTP proxy on your network then you must configure the Firedrill client application to go via it (as described here), rather than configure it at the application whose data you wish to tunnel.

Firefox Figure 2 - The "Connection Settings" dialog

MSN Messenger

Select the "Options" item from the "Tools" menu, you should be presented with a dialog box similar to that shown in Figure 1 below. Select "Connection" from the panel on the left and then press the "Advanced Settings" button to edit the connection settings.

MSN Messenger Figure 1 - The "Options" dialog

In the "Connection Settings" dialog, set the SOCKS proxy address to be the explicit address 127.0.0.1 and the SOCKS port to be 1080, as shown in Figure 2 below. Accept these configuration settings by clicking "OK" on the configuration dialogs.

MSN Messenger Figure 2 - The "Connection Settings" dialog

GAIM Internet Messenger

Select the "Preferences" item from the "Tools" menu, you should be presented with a dialog box similar to that shown in Figure 1 below. Select the "Network" tab to allow you to edit the networking settings. Set the "Proxy Server" type to be SOCKS5, the host address to be the explicit address 127.0.0.1 and the port to be 1080, as shown again in Figure 1 below. Accept these configuration settings by closing the preferences dialog.

GAIM Figure 1 - The "Preferences" dialog

EMule

Click the "Options" button to bring up the options dialog box as shown in Figure 1 below. Select the "Proxy" settings from the left hand list, and enable a SOCKS5 proxy with a proxy host of the explicit address 127.0.0.1 and a proxy port of 1080, again as shown in Figure 1. Accept these configuration settings by clicking "Apply" and "OK".

EMule Figure 1 - The "Options" dialog

BitTorrent

Select the "Preferences" item from the "Options" menu, you should be presented with a dialog box similar to that shown in Figure 1 below. Select "Connection" from the panel on the left and change the proxy server type to be "SOCKS5", the proxy address to be 127.0.0.1, the port to be 1080 and enable the "Use proxy server for peer-to-peer connections" option, as shown below again in Figure 1. Accept these configuration settings by clicking "Apply" and "OK".

BitTorrent Figure 1 - The "Connection Preferences" dialog

William Hill Poker (Using SocksCap to enable SOCKS support)

The Cryptologic online poker client software used by many poker sites (such as the William Hill one shown here) does not natively support the SOCKS protocol, and is therefore harder to setup for tunneling. This example then shows how to add SOCKS support to such an application by using the SocksCap program for Windows.

From the SocksCap "File" menu select the "Settings" item, you should be presented with a dialog box similar to that shown in Figure 1 below. Set the SOCKS server address to be 127.0.0.1, the port to be 1080, the SOCKS version to be 5 and enable "Resolve all names remotely". Accept these configuration settings by clicking "Apply" and "OK".

SocksCap Figure 1 - The "SocksCap Settings" dialog

Now we need to setup a profile within SocksCap for the application we want it to wrap. On the main SocksCap window, press the "New" button to bring up the "New Application Profile" dialog as shown below in Figure 2. Fill in the fields to point to the location of the poker client executable, and complete the profile by clicking "OK".

SocksCap Figure 2 - The "New Application Profile" dialog

Finally, the SOCKS wrapped poker client can be launched by selecting its profile from the list in the main SocksCap window and clicking the "Run" button, as shown below in Figure 3. The William Hill poker client should then start as normal, but all its network traffic will be tunnelled via SocksCap and the Firedrill client.

SocksCap Figure 3 - Launching the SocksCap wrapped poker client

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