Request for UDP support with socks5

[AR45H 1]

Hi,

I want to request adding support for UDP over Socks5.
OpenVPN GUI client supports UDP over socks5, so the capabilities are present in OpenVPN 2.5.x.

[OpenSourcerer 1360]

Not sure I understand. AirVPN does not offer SOCKS5.

[AR45H 1]

19 hours ago, OpenSourcerer said:

Not sure I understand. AirVPN does not offer SOCKS5.

In Eddie there is a socks option under the proxy type. Is that just socks4 then if the client doesn't support socks5?

[Staff 9761]

1 hour ago, AR45H said:

21 hours ago, OpenSourcerer said:

Not sure I understand. AirVPN does not offer SOCKS5.

In Eddie there is a socks option under the proxy type. Is that just socks4 then if the client doesn't support socks5?

Hello!

OpenVPN is "socks" aware and supports connections to SOCKS4/5 proxies, as well as HTTP proxies. Eddie uses this feature. It's very useful if you are behind a corporate proxy and so on. Currently, to use this option OpenVPN must work over TCP because even when you enable UDP proxying on the SOCKS proxy (if the proxy supports it) you must first open a TCP connection to the proxy and, only once the method-dependent negotiation is complete, send an UDP ASSOCIATE request, acknowledge the reply, and properly process the port the proxy will indicate you to send UDP packets. The described process is currently unavailable on OpenVPN 2 and our OpenVPN3 library (while in WireGuard the option to connect over a proxy of any kind is totally missing).

For more details and a thorough overview see RFC 1928 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1928

Kind regard
 

[AR45H 1]

5 hours ago, Staff said:

Hello!

OpenVPN is "socks" aware and supports connections to SOCKS4/5 proxies, as well as HTTP proxies. Eddie uses this feature. It's very useful if you are behind a corporate proxy and so on. Currently, to use this option OpenVPN must work over TCP because even when you enable UDP proxying on the SOCKS proxy (if the proxy supports it) you must first open a TCP connection to the proxy and, only once the method-dependent negotiation is complete, send an UDP ASSOCIATE request, acknowledge the reply, and properly process the port the proxy will indicate you to send UDP packets. The described process is currently unavailable on OpenVPN 2 and our OpenVPN3 library (while in WireGuard the option to connect over a proxy of any kind is totally missing).

For more details and a thorough overview see RFC 1928 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1928

Kind regard
 

Hi,

Thanks for replying.
So if I'm understanding this correctly the OpenVPN library that Eddie makes use of is different from the one used in OpenVPN GUI 2.5.x?
Is this because Eddie and subsequently AirVPN use a custom OpenVPN library? Or is it because the library in use in Eddie is outdated?
If it is a custom library are there any plans to add the functionality? and If it is outdated are there any plans to implement updated libraries seeing as OpenVPN GUI is capable of establishing a UDP connection over Socks5 (through the process you described)?

Thank you.

[Staff 9761]

@AR45H

Hello!

Eddie Desktop edition is not linked against any OpenVPN library. Instead, it  runs external binaries with the proper options, according to customer preferences, in order to establish an OpenVPN based connection. It can run:

• OpenVPN 2.x, which is a binary
• Hummingbird, which is an AirVPN software (available to most Linux distributions and macOS) linked against OpenVPN3-AirVPN library
• a custom binary enforced by the user and provided that it is an OpenVPN drop-in replacement

Furthermore:

• OpenVPN3-AirVPN is a forked library which (currently) is 161 commits ahead of OpenVPN:master. It's a fork of the OpenVPN 3 core library
• OpenVPN GUI is a Windows graphical user interface (GUI) of OpenVPN.
• Eddie can run the latest OpenVPN 2.x version installed in your system or the Hummingbird version included in the package

Supporting connections over a SOCKS5 proxy and switching to UDP for data exchange is technically possible but currently not available in any OpenVPN version. We might evaluate the matter in our OpenVPN3 library in the future, but it's not planned at the moment.

Kind regards