rathole

A fast and stable reverse proxy for NAT traversal, written in Rust

rathole, like frp, can help to expose the service on the device behind the NAT to the Internet, via a server with a public IP.

Quickstart

To use rathole, you need a server with a public IP, and a device behind the NAT, where some services that need to be exposed to the Internet.

Assuming you have a NAS at home behind the NAT, and want to expose its ssh service to the Internet:

1. On the server which has a public IP

Create server.toml with the following content and accommodate it to your needs.

# server.toml
[server]
bind_addr = "0.0.0.0:2333" # `2333` specifys the port that rathole listens for clients

[server.services.my_nas_ssh]
token = "use_a_secret_that_only_you_know" # Token that is used to authenticate the client for the service. Change to a arbitrary value.
bind_addr = "0.0.0.0:5202" # `5202` specifys the port that exposes `my_nas_ssh` to the Internet

Then run:

./rathole server.toml

2. On the host which is behind the NAT (your NAS)

Create client.toml with the following content and accommodate it to your needs.

[client]
remote_addr = "myserver.com:2333" # The address of the server. The port must be the same with the port in `server.bind_addr`

[client.services.my_nas_ssh]
token = "use_a_secret_that_only_you_know" # Must be the same with the server to pass the validataion
local_addr = "127.0.0.1:22" # The address of the service that needs to be forwarded

Then run:

./rathole client.toml

3. Now the client will try to connect to the server myserver.com on port 2333, and any traffic to myserver.com:5202 will be forwarded to the client's port 22.

So you can ssh myserver.com:5202 to ssh to your NAS.

Configuration

rathole can automatically determine to run in the server mode or the client mode, according to the content of the configuration file, if only one of [server] and [client] block is present, like the example in Quickstart.

But the [client] and [server] block can also be put in one file. Then on the server side, run rathole --server config.toml and on the client side, run rathole --client config.toml to explictly tell rathole the running mode.

Here is the full configuration specification:

[client]
remote_addr = "example.com:2333" # Necessary. The address of the server
default_token = "default_token_if_not_specify" # Optional. The default token of services, if they don't define their own ones

[client.transport]
type = "tcp" # Necessary if multiple transport blocks present. Possibile values: ["tcp", "tls"]. Default: "tcp"
[client.transport.tls] # Necessary if `type` is "tls"
trusted_root = "ca.pem" # Necessary. The certificate of CA that signed the server's certificate
hostname = "example.com" # Optional. The hostname that the client uses to validate the certificate. If not set, fallback to `client.remote_addr`

[client.services.service1] # A service that needs forwarding. The name `service1` can change arbitrarily, as long as identical to the name in the server's configuration
token = "whatever" # Necessary if `client.default_token` not set
local_addr = "127.0.0.1:1081" # Necessary. The address of the service that needs to be forwarded

[client.services.service2] # Multiple services can be defined
local_addr = "127.0.0.1:1082"

[server]
bind_addr = "0.0.0.0:2333" # Necessary. The address that the server listens for clients. Generally only the port needs to be change. 
default_token = "default_token_if_not_specify" # Optional

[server.transport]
type = "tcp" # Same as `[client.transport]`
[server.transport.tls]
pkcs12 = "identify.pfx" # Necessary. pkcs12 file of server's certificate and private key
pkcs12_password = "password" # Necessary. Password of the pkcs12 file

[server.services.service1] # The service name must be identical to the client side
token = "whatever" # Necesary if `server.default_token` not set
bind_addr = "0.0.0.0:8081" # Necessary. The address of the service is exposed at. Generally only the port needs to be change. 

[server.services.service2] 
bind_addr = "0.0.0.1:8082"

Benchmark

rathole has similiar latency to frp, but can handle more connections. Also it can provide much better bandwidth than frp.

See also Benchmark.

Development

rathole is in active development. A load of features is on the way:

• UDP support
• Hot reloading
• HTTP APIs for configuration