s5p/docs/USAGE.md

s5p -- Usage

Basic Usage

# Direct proxy (no chain, just a SOCKS5 server)
s5p

# Through Tor
s5p -C socks5://127.0.0.1:9050

# Through Tor + another proxy
s5p -C socks5://127.0.0.1:9050,socks5://proxy:1080

# Custom listen address
s5p -l 0.0.0.0:9999 -C socks5://127.0.0.1:9050

# From config file
s5p -c config/s5p.yaml

# With proxy source API (rotate exit proxy per-connection)
s5p -C socks5://127.0.0.1:9050 -S http://10.200.1.250:8081/proxies

# Debug mode
s5p -v -C socks5://127.0.0.1:9050

Configuration

Copy the tracked example to create your live config:

cp config/example.yaml config/s5p.yaml

File	Tracked	Purpose
config/example.yaml	yes	Template with placeholder addresses
config/s5p.yaml	no (gitignored)	Live config with real proxy addresses

listen: 127.0.0.1:1080
timeout: 10
retries: 3
log_level: info

chain:
  - socks5://127.0.0.1:9050

proxy_pool:
  sources:
    - url: http://10.200.1.250:8081/proxies
      proto: socks5
      limit: 1000
    - file: /etc/s5p/proxies.txt
  refresh: 300
  test_interval: 120
  test_url: http://httpbin.org/ip
  test_timeout: 15
  test_concurrency: 5
  max_fails: 3
  state_file: ""      # empty = ~/.cache/s5p/pool.json

Proxy URL Format

protocol://[username:password@]host[:port]

Protocol	Default Port	Auth Support
socks5	1080	username/password
socks4	1080	none
http	8080	Basic

Container

make build   # build image
make up      # start container (detached)
make logs    # follow logs
make down    # stop and remove container

Source (./src) and config (./config/s5p.yaml) are mounted read-only into the container. Edit locally, restart to pick up changes.

Proxy Pool

Managed proxy pool with multiple sources, health testing, and persistence. Appends a random alive proxy after the static chain on each connection.

proxy_pool:
  sources:
    - url: http://10.200.1.250:8081/proxies
      proto: socks5         # optional: filter by protocol
      country: US           # optional: filter by country
      limit: 1000           # max proxies to fetch from API
    - file: /etc/s5p/proxies.txt  # text file, one proxy URL per line
  refresh: 300              # re-fetch sources every 300 seconds
  test_interval: 120        # health test cycle every 120 seconds
  test_url: http://httpbin.org/ip  # URL for health checks
  test_timeout: 15          # per-test timeout (seconds)
  test_concurrency: 5       # parallel health tests
  max_fails: 3              # evict after N consecutive failures
  state_file: ""            # empty = ~/.cache/s5p/pool.json

Sources

Type	Config key	Description
HTTP API	url	JSON: {"proxies": [{"proto": "socks5", "proxy": "host:port"}, ...]}
Text file	file	One proxy URL per line, # comments, blank lines ignored

Proxy file format

# Exit proxies
socks5://1.2.3.4:1080
socks5://user:pass@5.6.7.8:1080
http://proxy.example.com:8080

Health testing

Each cycle tests all proxies through the full chain (static chain + proxy) by sending an HTTP GET to test_url. Proxies are marked alive on 200 response. After max_fails consecutive failures, a proxy is evicted.

Mass-failure guard: if >90% of tests fail in one cycle, eviction is skipped (likely the static chain is broken, not the proxies).

Persistence

Pool state is saved to state_file (default: ~/.cache/s5p/pool.json) after each refresh/health cycle and on shutdown. On startup, previously-alive proxies are loaded for fast warm starts.

CLI shorthand

s5p -C socks5://127.0.0.1:9050 -S http://10.200.1.250:8081/proxies

The -S flag creates a pool with a single API source (uses defaults for all other pool settings).

Legacy config

The old proxy_source key is still supported and auto-converts to proxy_pool with a single API source. proxy_pool takes precedence if both are present.

Connection Retry

When a proxy pool is active, s5p retries failed connections with a different random proxy. Controlled by the retries setting (default: 3). Static-only chains do not retry (retrying the same chain is pointless).

retries: 5   # try up to 5 different proxies per connection

s5p -r 5 -C socks5://127.0.0.1:9050 -S http://api:8081/proxies

Metrics

s5p tracks connection metrics and logs a summary every 60 seconds and on shutdown:

metrics: conn=142 ok=98 fail=44 retries=88 active=3 in=1.2M out=4.5M up=0h05m12s

Counter	Meaning
conn	Total incoming connections
ok	Successfully connected + relayed
fail	All retries exhausted
retries	Total retry attempts
active	Currently relaying
in	Bytes client -> remote
out	Bytes remote -> client
up	Server uptime

Profiling

# Run with cProfile enabled
s5p --cprofile -c config/s5p.yaml

# Custom output file
s5p --cprofile output.prof -c config/s5p.yaml

# Analyze after stopping
python -m pstats s5p.prof

Testing the Proxy

# Check exit IP via Tor
curl --proxy socks5h://127.0.0.1:1080 https://check.torproject.org/api/ip

# Fetch a page
curl --proxy socks5h://127.0.0.1:1080 https://example.com

# Use with Firefox: set SOCKS5 proxy to 127.0.0.1:1080, enable remote DNS

Note: use socks5h:// (not socks5://) with curl to send DNS through the proxy.

Chain Order

Hops are traversed left-to-right:

-C hop1,hop2,hop3

Client -> s5p -> hop1 -> hop2 -> hop3 -> Destination

Each hop only sees its immediate neighbors.