jpillora/chisel

Chisel

Table of Contents

Features

Install

Binaries

Docker

docker run --rm -it jpillora/chisel --help

Fedora

sudo dnf -y install chisel

Source

$ go install github.com/jpillora/chisel@latest

Demo

$ chisel server --port $PORT --backend http://example.com
# listens on $PORT, proxies normal web requests to http://example.com

$ chisel client https://<your-app>.fly.dev 3000
# connects to your chisel server,
# tunnels your localhost:3000 to the server's localhost:3000

Usage

$ chisel --help

  Usage: chisel [command] [--help]

  Version: X.Y.Z

  Commands:
    server - runs chisel in server mode
    client - runs chisel in client mode

  Read more:
    https://github.com/jpillora/chisel

$ chisel server --help

  Usage: chisel server [options]

  Options:

    --host, Defines the HTTP listening host – the network interface
    (defaults the environment variable HOST and falls back to 0.0.0.0).

    --port, -p, Defines the HTTP listening port (defaults to the environment
    variable PORT and falls back to port 8080).

    --key, (deprecated use --keygen and --keyfile instead)
    An optional string to seed the generation of a ECDSA public
    and private key pair. All communications will be secured using this
    key pair. Share the subsequent fingerprint with clients to enable detection
    of man-in-the-middle attacks (defaults to the CHISEL_KEY environment
    variable, otherwise a new key is generate each run).

    --keygen, A path to write a newly generated PEM-encoded SSH private key file.
    If users depend on your --key fingerprint, you may also include your --key to
    output your existing key. Use - (dash) to output the generated key to stdout.

    --keyfile, An optional path to a PEM-encoded SSH private key. When
    this flag is set, the --key option is ignored, and the provided private key
    is used to secure all communications. (defaults to the CHISEL_KEY_FILE
    environment variable). Since ECDSA keys are short, you may also set keyfile
    to the inline key string itself, exactly as printed by --keygen (a base64
    string with a "ck-" prefix); no extra base64 encoding is needed.

    --authfile, An optional path to a users.json file. This file should
    be an object with users defined like:
      {
        "<user:pass>": ["<addr-regex>","<addr-regex>"]
      }
    when <user> connects, their <pass> will be verified and then
    each of the remote addresses will be compared against the list
    of address regular expressions for a match. Patterns are NOT
    anchored by default: "10.0.0.1:80" also matches
    "210.0.0.1:8080", and "." matches any character. Anchor your
    patterns, e.g. "^10\.0\.0\.1:80$". The empty string ""
    matches every address. Addresses will
    always come in the form "<remote-host>:<remote-port>" for normal remotes,
    "R:<local-interface>:<local-port>" for reverse port forwarding
    remotes, and "socks" for SOCKS5 proxy access. Note that SOCKS5
    access previously bypassed this list; existing authfiles which
    should allow SOCKS5 must add an entry matching "socks" (the
    empty wildcard "" matches everything, including "socks"). This
    file will be automatically reloaded on change. Reloads apply
    to new connections and to new tunnels of connected clients;
    established tunnels are not interrupted.

    --auth, An optional string representing a single user with full
    access, in the form of <user:pass>. It is equivalent to creating an
    authfile with {"<user:pass>": [""]}. If unset, it will use the
    environment variable AUTH.

    --keepalive, An optional keepalive interval. Since the underlying
    transport is HTTP, in many instances we'll be traversing through
    proxies, often these proxies will close idle connections. You must
    specify a time with a unit, for example '5s' or '2m'. Defaults
    to '25s' (set to 0s to disable).

    --backend, Specifies another HTTP server to proxy requests to when
    chisel receives a normal HTTP request. Useful for hiding chisel in
    plain sight. --proxy is accepted as an alias for this flag.

    --socks5, Allow clients to access the internal SOCKS5 proxy. See
    chisel client --help for more information.

    --reverse, Allow clients to specify reverse port forwarding remotes
    in addition to normal remotes.

    --tls-key, Enables TLS and provides optional path to a PEM-encoded
    TLS private key. When this flag is set, you must also set --tls-cert,
    and you cannot set --tls-domain.

    --tls-cert, Enables TLS and provides optional path to a PEM-encoded
    TLS certificate. When this flag is set, you must also set --tls-key,
    and you cannot set --tls-domain.

    --tls-domain, Enables TLS and automatically acquires a TLS key and
    certificate using LetsEncrypt. Setting --tls-domain requires port 443.
    You may specify multiple --tls-domain flags to serve multiple domains.
    The resulting files are cached in the "$HOME/.cache/chisel" directory.
    You can modify this path by setting the CHISEL_LE_CACHE variable,
    or disable caching by setting this variable to "-". You can optionally
    provide a certificate notification email by setting CHISEL_LE_EMAIL.

    --tls-ca, a path to a PEM encoded CA certificate bundle or a directory
    holding multiple PEM encode CA certificate bundle files, which is used to 
    validate client connections. The provided CA certificates will be used 
    instead of the system roots. This is commonly used to implement mutual-TLS. 

    --pid Generate pid file in current working directory

    -v, Enable verbose logging

    --help, This help text

  Signals:
    The chisel process is listening for:
      a SIGINT or SIGTERM to begin a graceful shutdown
        (a second signal forces an immediate exit),
      a SIGUSR2 to print process stats, and
      a SIGHUP to short-circuit the client reconnect timer

  Version:
    X.Y.Z

  Read more:
    https://github.com/jpillora/chisel

$ chisel client --help

  Usage: chisel client [options] <server> <remote> [remote] [remote] ...

  <server> is the URL to the chisel server.

  <remote>s are remote connections tunneled through the server, each of
  which come in the form:

    <local-host>:<local-port>:<remote-host>:<remote-port>/<protocol>

    ■ local-host defaults to 0.0.0.0 (all interfaces).
    ■ local-port defaults to remote-port.
    ■ remote-port is required*.
    ■ remote-host defaults to 127.0.0.1 (server localhost).
    ■ protocol defaults to tcp.

  which shares <remote-host>:<remote-port> from the server to the client
  as <local-host>:<local-port>, or:

    R:<local-interface>:<local-port>:<remote-host>:<remote-port>/<protocol>

  which does reverse port forwarding, sharing <remote-host>:<remote-port>
  from the client to the server's <local-interface>:<local-port>.

    example remotes

      3000
      example.com:3000
      3000:google.com:80
      192.168.0.5:3000:google.com:80
      socks
      5000:socks
      udpsocks
      5000:udpsocks
      R:2222:localhost:22
      R:socks
      R:5000:socks
      R:5000:udpsocks
      stdio:example.com:22
      1.1.1.1:53/udp

    When the chisel server has --socks5 enabled, remotes can
    specify "socks" or "udpsocks" in place of remote-host and
    remote-port. Both default to the local host and port
    127.0.0.1:1080. Connections to this remote will terminate
    at the server's internal SOCKS5 proxy. When the server also
    has --authfile set, SOCKS5 access requires an entry matching
    the token "socks" in the user's address list.

    When the chisel server has --reverse enabled, remotes can
    be prefixed with R to denote that they are reversed. That
    is, the server will listen and accept connections, and they
    will be proxied through the client which specified the remote.
    Reverse remotes specifying "R:socks" will listen on the server's
    default socks port (1080) and terminate the connection at the
    client's internal SOCKS5 proxy.

    The "socks" remote supports TCP CONNECT only. Use "udpsocks"
    for TCP CONNECT and UDP ASSOCIATE, including "R:udpsocks".
    It binds TCP and UDP on the same configured interface and port;
    the UDP relay never uses a randomly allocated listening port.
    UDP requires support on both Chisel peers. Destination names are
    resolved at the exit node. If UDP cannot bind, TCP remains available
    and UDP ASSOCIATE fails; no alternate port is used. Clients using
    a zero UDP source port allow one pending association per source IP
    until the first valid datagram pins it. BIND, UDP fragmentation,
    and udpsocks over stdio are not supported.

    When stdio is used as local-host, the tunnel will connect standard
    input/output of this program with the remote. This is useful when 
    combined with ssh ProxyCommand. You can use
      ssh -o ProxyCommand='chisel client chiselserver stdio:%h:%p' \
          user@example.com
    to connect to an SSH server through the tunnel.

  Options:

    --fingerprint, A *strongly recommended* fingerprint string
    to perform host-key validation against the server's public key.
    Fingerprint mismatches will close the connection.
    Fingerprints are generated by hashing the ECDSA public key using
    SHA256 and encoding the result in base64.
    Fingerprints must be 44 characters containing a trailing equals (=).
    Legacy MD5 colon fingerprints (deprecated) are still accepted,
    but only in their full 16-octet form; truncated prefixes are
    rejected.

    --auth, An optional username and password (client authentication)
    in the form: "<user>:<pass>". These credentials are compared to
    the credentials inside the server's --authfile. defaults to the
    AUTH environment variable.

    --keepalive, An optional keepalive interval. Since the underlying
    transport is HTTP, in many instances we'll be traversing through
    proxies, often these proxies will close idle connections. You must
    specify a time with a unit, for example '5s' or '2m'. Defaults
    to '25s' (set to 0s to disable).

    --max-retry-count, Maximum number of times to retry before exiting.
    Defaults to unlimited.

    --min-retry-interval, Minimum wait time before retrying after a
    disconnection. Defaults to 1 second.

    --max-retry-interval, Maximum wait time before retrying after a
    disconnection. Defaults to 5 minutes.

    --proxy, An optional HTTP CONNECT or SOCKS5 proxy which will be
    used to reach the chisel server. Authentication can be specified
    inside the URL. Credentials must be URL-encoded; for example a
    "#" in the password must be written as "%23".
    For example, http://admin:password@my-server.com:8081
            or: socks://admin:password@my-server.com:1080
    The socks://, socks5:// and socks5h:// schemes are equivalent:
    DNS is always resolved by the proxy.

    --header, Set a custom header in the form "HeaderName: HeaderContent".
    Can be used multiple times. (e.g --header "Foo: Bar" --header "Hello: World")

    --hostname, Optionally set the 'Host' header (defaults to the host
    found in the server url).

    --sni, Override the ServerName when using TLS (defaults to the 
    hostname).

    --tls-ca, An optional root certificate bundle used to verify the
    chisel server. Only valid when connecting to the server with
    "https" or "wss". By default, the operating system CAs will be used.

    --tls-skip-verify, Skip server TLS certificate verification of
    chain and host name (if TLS is used for transport connections to
    server). If set, client accepts any TLS certificate presented by
    the server and any host name in that certificate. This only affects
    transport https (wss) connection. Chisel server's public key
    may be still verified (see --fingerprint) after inner connection
    is established.

    --tls-key, a path to a PEM encoded private key used for client 
    authentication (mutual-TLS).

    --tls-cert, a path to a PEM encoded certificate matching the provided 
    private key. The certificate must have client authentication 
    enabled (mutual-TLS).

    --pid Generate pid file in current working directory

    -v, Enable verbose logging

    --help, This help text

  Signals:
    The chisel process is listening for:
      a SIGINT or SIGTERM to begin a graceful shutdown
        (a second signal forces an immediate exit),
      a SIGUSR2 to print process stats, and
      a SIGHUP to short-circuit the client reconnect timer

  Version:
    X.Y.Z

  Read more:
    https://github.com/jpillora/chisel

Security

Authentication

TLS Guide

chisel server --port 443 --tls-domain chisel.example.com --auth user:pass
chisel client --auth user:pass https://chisel.example.com R:2222:localhost:22

chisel server --port 443 --tls-key key.pem --tls-cert cert.pem
chisel client --tls-ca ca.pem https://chisel.example.com 3000

SOCKS5 Guide with Docker

Reverse SOCKS with an Authfile

{
  "exituser:password": ["^R:127\\.0\\.0\\.1:1080$"]
}

chisel server --reverse --authfile users.json
chisel client --auth exituser:password <server-address> R:socks
# server-side consumers point SOCKS5 clients at 127.0.0.1:1080,
# and their traffic exits via the chisel client's network

Running behind a CDN (Cloudflare)

Tuning with environment variables

Caveats

Contributing

Changelog

Upgrading to 1.12

License