Dante – A free SOCKS server – inet
Dante is a product developed by Inferno Nettverk A/S. It consists of
a SOCKS server and a SOCKS client, implementing RFC 1928
and related standards. It is a flexible product that can be used to provide
convenient and secure network connectivity.
Inferno Nettverk A/S provides commercial services related to Dante,
including 24/7 phone support, customized installations/tuning,
development, porting and embedding.
For more information about support, please see the Dante support page.
Once installed, Dante can in most cases be made transparent to
clients, providing functionality somewhat similar to what could be
described as a non-transparent Layer 4 router. For customers
interested in controlling and monitoring access in or out of their
network, the Dante SOCKS server can provide several benefits, including
security and TCP/IP termination (no direct contact between hosts inside
and outside of the customer network), resource control (bandwidth,
sessions), and logging (host information, data transferred).
The Dante SOCKS server interoperates with many popular network
applications which already have SOCKS support built in to them, such
as most web-browsers, instant messaging programs, Bloomberg terminals,
and many others.
Developed by Inferno Nettverk A/S, Dante is released under a
BSD/CMU-type license and
comes with complete source code.
Dante is used daily by Fortune 100 companies and large international
organizations, both as a standard (forward) proxy server and as a
reverse proxy server.
Configuration and setup of Dante is described in the
configuration pages.
Several commercial modules are available for the Dante server. For more
information see the module page.
Dante Development Roadmap
Current development roadmap for Dante (latest
update End of April 2021).
Dante 1. 4. x
Dante version 1. 3 recently released.
Dante 1. 5. x
Dante 1. 0 is under active development. Likely earliest release
date: Q4 2021
Confirmed major changes:
Improved server chaining.
Expanded network monitoring functionality.
Preloading/socksify improvements.
Unconfirmed major changes:
VPN support.
Recent news
2021-04-30: Dante 1. 3 is now available. This
is a maintenance release with various bug fixes and improvements
to the LDAP module. Please see the announcement
for full details.
2017-11-08: A page describing
how to deploy Dante in
fault-tolerant and load-balanced configurations has been added
to the documentation for Dante.
2017-02-06: Dante 1. 2 is now available. This
is a maintenance release with various bug fixes and no new server
features. Please see the announcement
2015-04-23: Article with
analysis of Dante process with runtime of 326 days in production
environment posted to blog section.
2015-03-11: A page describing how
to stress test and
estimate the capacity of a Dante server has been added to the
documentation for Dante.
2014-09-03: Dante 1. 1 has been released. This
version contains various platform specific bug fixes and improves
IPV6 support. Please see the announcement
2014-05-17: A (very) detailed
performance analysis report
(Inferno Technical Report 4) looking at the performance of Dante
1. 0 in a production environment is now available for download.
2013-11-18: The full Dante version 1. 0 is now
available. This version introduces several new features and many bug
fixes. Please see the announcement and
the configuration upgrade
page for full details. This version is also available in prebuilt
binary format for some platforms and can be downloaded from the SSL
protected binary download page.
2013-08-02: The second pre-release of Dante version 1. 0
is now available. This version introduces several new features in addition
to bug fixes. Please see the announcement
2012-08-06: A report that looks at the functionality of
the new code for limiting connections and connection rates, to be found
in Dante version 1. 0, has been published:
Analysis of the session
limit functionality in Dante version 1. 3. 2. 4
2012-06-19: A pre-release of Dante version 1. 0
2012-03-07: A performance analysis of new real-time
functionality that will be available in Dante version 1. 0 is available here:
Analysis of Real-Time scheduling functionality in Dante version 1. 2.
(This functionality is included in the 1. 0-pre1 release which is
available now).
2011-08-04: Dante version 1. 2 has been released.
This is a maintenance release that primarily fixes bugs found in the
previous release.
The announcement lists the changes.
2011-07-27 We have published a
report with a performance analysis of Dante 1. 1. The document
describes how Dante was configured to run in a high-traffic
environment, and the resulting performance and resource requirements.
2011-06-21: Dante version 1. 1, which fixes
some bugs in Dante 1. 0 has been released today.
2011-06-14: The first full version of the
1. x major release is now available. Dante version 1. 0 has
several new features in addition to bug fixes and performance improvements.
A full overview of the changes can be found in the
announcement.
Advisories
2005-01-28: A reliability problem was reported
that might affect some configurations of Dante, up to and
including version 1. 14. See
the advisory for details.
Dante – A free SOCKS server – inet
Dante is a product developed by Inferno Nettverk A/S. It consists of
a SOCKS server and a SOCKS client, implementing RFC 1928
and related standards. It is a flexible product that can be used to provide
convenient and secure network connectivity.
Inferno Nettverk A/S provides commercial services related to Dante,
including 24/7 phone support, customized installations/tuning,
development, porting and embedding.
For more information about support, please see the Dante support page.
Once installed, Dante can in most cases be made transparent to
clients, providing functionality somewhat similar to what could be
described as a non-transparent Layer 4 router. For customers
interested in controlling and monitoring access in or out of their
network, the Dante SOCKS server can provide several benefits, including
security and TCP/IP termination (no direct contact between hosts inside
and outside of the customer network), resource control (bandwidth,
sessions), and logging (host information, data transferred).
The Dante SOCKS server interoperates with many popular network
applications which already have SOCKS support built in to them, such
as most web-browsers, instant messaging programs, Bloomberg terminals,
and many others.
Developed by Inferno Nettverk A/S, Dante is released under a
BSD/CMU-type license and
comes with complete source code.
Dante is used daily by Fortune 100 companies and large international
organizations, both as a standard (forward) proxy server and as a
reverse proxy server.
Configuration and setup of Dante is described in the
configuration pages.
Several commercial modules are available for the Dante server. For more
information see the module page.
Dante Development Roadmap
Current development roadmap for Dante (latest
update End of April 2021).
Dante 1. 4. x
Dante version 1. 3 recently released.
Dante 1. 5. x
Dante 1. 0 is under active development. Likely earliest release
date: Q4 2021
Confirmed major changes:
Improved server chaining.
Expanded network monitoring functionality.
Preloading/socksify improvements.
Unconfirmed major changes:
VPN support.
Recent news
2021-04-30: Dante 1. 3 is now available. This
is a maintenance release with various bug fixes and improvements
to the LDAP module. Please see the announcement
for full details.
2017-11-08: A page describing
how to deploy Dante in
fault-tolerant and load-balanced configurations has been added
to the documentation for Dante.
2017-02-06: Dante 1. 2 is now available. This
is a maintenance release with various bug fixes and no new server
features. Please see the announcement
2015-04-23: Article with
analysis of Dante process with runtime of 326 days in production
environment posted to blog section.
2015-03-11: A page describing how
to stress test and
estimate the capacity of a Dante server has been added to the
documentation for Dante.
2014-09-03: Dante 1. 1 has been released. This
version contains various platform specific bug fixes and improves
IPV6 support. Please see the announcement
2014-05-17: A (very) detailed
performance analysis report
(Inferno Technical Report 4) looking at the performance of Dante
1. 0 in a production environment is now available for download.
2013-11-18: The full Dante version 1. 0 is now
available. This version introduces several new features and many bug
fixes. Please see the announcement and
the configuration upgrade
page for full details. This version is also available in prebuilt
binary format for some platforms and can be downloaded from the SSL
protected binary download page.
2013-08-02: The second pre-release of Dante version 1. 0
is now available. This version introduces several new features in addition
to bug fixes. Please see the announcement
2012-08-06: A report that looks at the functionality of
the new code for limiting connections and connection rates, to be found
in Dante version 1. 0, has been published:
Analysis of the session
limit functionality in Dante version 1. 3. 2. 4
2012-06-19: A pre-release of Dante version 1. 0
2012-03-07: A performance analysis of new real-time
functionality that will be available in Dante version 1. 0 is available here:
Analysis of Real-Time scheduling functionality in Dante version 1. 2.
(This functionality is included in the 1. 0-pre1 release which is
available now).
2011-08-04: Dante version 1. 2 has been released.
This is a maintenance release that primarily fixes bugs found in the
previous release.
The announcement lists the changes.
2011-07-27 We have published a
report with a performance analysis of Dante 1. 1. The document
describes how Dante was configured to run in a high-traffic
environment, and the resulting performance and resource requirements.
2011-06-21: Dante version 1. 1, which fixes
some bugs in Dante 1. 0 has been released today.
2011-06-14: The first full version of the
1. x major release is now available. Dante version 1. 0 has
several new features in addition to bug fixes and performance improvements.
A full overview of the changes can be found in the
announcement.
Advisories
2005-01-28: A reliability problem was reported
that might affect some configurations of Dante, up to and
including version 1. 14. See
the advisory for details.
Dante SOCKS Proxy – Server and Client for UNIX – GitHub
(c) Inferno Nettverk A/S, Norway.
This is an unofficial mirror, I (@notpeter) make no claim of copyright
or authorship on this work. Please see LICENSE file for more information.
Unofficial git repo:
Official Distribution:
Highlights:
24/7 support available from the people who wrote it and know it best.
Liberal BSD/CMU-type license.
Advanced access control mechanisms.
Extensive logging possibilities.
Supports GSS-API (Kerberos) based authentication and strong encryption.
Supports server-chaining (currently only for TCP connect).
Integrates with LDAP and Active Directory (via LDAP module).
Bandwidth management (via Bandwidth module).
Port control and redirection support (via Redirect module).
Compatible with Bloomberg clients.
Can socksify most programs at runtime without requiring recompilation.
Documentation:
Dante 1. 4. x Docs
Dante 1. 3. 2. x Docs
Frequently Asked Questions
Other links:
Commercial Support
Mailing Lists
Commercial Modules – Bandwidth Control, Redirect, LDAP
Survey
Note: This is an unofficial copy of the Dante source which I’ve imported into a git repository.
I’ve imported history going back to Dante 0. 90. 0 using a
simple script to automate the process.
