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According to the answer of this question, I have my /etc/tsocks.conf containing these lines:

path {
server = localhost
server_port = 1081
reaches = <ip-address-of-server-b>/32
path {
server = localhost
server_port = 1082
reaches = <ip-address-of-server-d>/32

and I have run these two commands:

ssh -fND :1081 server-a
ssh -fND :1082 server-b

Now I want to use tsocks to do a wget of a page first using the socks' service listening to 1081 port and then using the other one listening to 1082 port. If I had only one service I know that I can do that through this command:

tsocks wget http://www.google.com

Now that I have more than one tsocks services how can I do that? Can I provide for example the forwarding port through an option? I can't find something in the man pages of tsocks. I want something like that:

tsocks --forwarding_port=1081 wget http://www.google.com
tsocks --forwarding_port=1082 wget http://www.google.com
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1 Answer 1

up vote 4 down vote accepted

How about using two different configuration files for tsocks?

According to this manpage, tsocks will read its configuration from the file specified in the TSOCKS_CONF_FILE environment variable. So you could split your tsocks.conf to tsocks.1081.conf and tsocks.1082.conf and then do something like this (bash syntax):

$ TSOCKS_CONF_FILE=/path/to/tsocks.1081.conf tsocks wget http://www.google.com
$ TSOCKS_CONF_FILE=/path/to/tsocks.1082.conf tsocks wget http://www.google.com

Note: The manpage has a typo and lists the environment variable as TSOCKS_CONFFILE - missing an underscore.

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btw, the question you mention seems to be for a different case than yours. They want to use tsocks for reaching different servers through different ssh tunnels. You want to make tsocks reach the same server through a specific ssh tunnel. –  m000 Apr 1 '12 at 14:00
yes, I just want to make many ssh tunnels to download a batch of URLs . I have splited the URLs set to different downloader instances, and I want each downloader instance to use a different socks' proxy.. :) I will check your answer right now! –  Thanasis Petsas Apr 1 '12 at 14:11
yes ok!! :) it works if you replace the TSOCKS_CONFFILE with TSOCKS_CONF_FILE. It should be a typo in the manual.. For more information you can see this page: bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=702864 Thank you very much for the answer! :) Please update your answer with the right configuration file token! –  Thanasis Petsas Apr 1 '12 at 14:57

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