Yahoo SOCKS proxy workaround found

Openfire Plugins Kraken - IM Gateway
1

I’'ve been able to workaround the IM Gateway lack of SOCKS proxy support by using the unix socat utility to “socksify” wildfire.

First download and compile (or just install) socat

http://www.dest-unreach.org/socat/

Then run socat to connect to your proxy and the yahoo server.

./socat -d TCP4-LISTEN:5050,fork SOCKS4A:socks:scs.msg.yahoo.com:5050

This creates a local port on the server which is a tunnel through the normal SOCKS proxy. Then in the Wildfire admin gateway settings browser, change the Options for the Yahoo gateway to the computer running the socat process. In the case of the same server as wildfire, choose localhost or 127.0.0.1 as the yahoo server.

I have not been able to get AIM or MSN to work with this technique, and I’'m not sure why. Has anyone else tried a similar technique to work with AIM or MSN?

2

Excellent pointer! I think I can explain why it doesn’‘t work for aim, icq and msn though. OSCAR (aim/icq) involves connecting to a number of different servers. You initially connect to a login server which sends you over to a BOS server when you are ready. But there are other servers you connect to for chatrooms and buddy icons and such. MSN I think sticks to one server, but the problem is that the one server isn’‘t static. You connect to a “nexus” which redirects you to a real server. I’'m not really sure what it uses to determine what server you go to. Seems like it might be location based. Anyway, it seems that Yahoo stays put on a single server. How nice of it! =)

3

Thanks for the insight. I’'ll take a look at some looks at some Wireshark captures and see if I can find a workaround, and report back. Though real built-in socks support would be best…