📖 Complete Documentation: See the Wormhole OKF Documentation Portal for user guides, system architecture, security specifications, and development logs.
Wormhole is a forward proxy without caching. You may use it for:
- Modifying requests to look like they are originated from the IP address that Wormhole is running on.
- Adding an authentication layer to the internet users in your organization.
- Logging internet activities to your syslog server.
- Blocking ads and other unwanted content.
- Secure Digest Authentication: Wormhole supports HTTP Digest Authentication with the modern SHA-256 algorithm. Passwords are never stored in plain text, providing a significant security improvement over Basic Authentication.
- Ad-blocking: Wormhole can block domains based on a comprehensive list of ad-serving and tracking domains. You can create your own ad-block database or use the provided script to download and compile one from popular sources.
- Allowlist: You can specify a list of domains that should never be blocked, ensuring that important services are always accessible.
- Blocklist: You can specify a list of domains to always block (inverted allowlist), providing an alternative approach to domain filtering.
- Domain Filtering Priority: When checking if a domain should be blocked, Wormhole follows this priority order: (1) Exact match in custom blocklist (highest priority - domains are blocked immediately), (2) Exact match in ad blocklist, (3) Exact match in allowlist, (4) Parent domain in custom blocklist, (5) Parent domain in ad blocklist, (6) Parent domain in allowlist (lowest priority). This allows fine-grained control over domain filtering where custom blocklists take precedence.
- HTTP/1.1 Upgrade: Automatically attempts to upgrade HTTP/1.0 requests to HTTP/1.1 to leverage modern web features and improve performance.
- IPv6 Prioritization: Prefers IPv6 connections when available for faster and more modern networking.
- Automatic IPv6 Detection: Automatically detects when IPv6 becomes available and can restart the server to enable dual-stack support.
- Security: Includes safeguards to prevent proxying to private and reserved IP addresses, mitigating the risk of SSRF (Server-Side Request Forgery) attacks.
- High Performance: Built with
asyncioand can leverageuvlooporwinloopfor even better performance. The number of concurrent connections is dynamically adjusted based on system limits. - Tor Support (optional): Routes all outbound traffic through a private, locally spawned tor daemon (never an unknown listener on
9050/9150), with a bridge bootstrap ladder (obfs4, snowflake, webtunnel) for censored networks.
- Python >= 3.11
- aiodns
- aiohttp
- aiosqlite
- loguru
- pywin32 (required for Windows)
- uvloop (optional for Linux and macOS)
- winloop (optional for Windows)
- python-socks and stem (optional, for
--tor) - A system tor binary and pluggable transports (optional, for
--tor)
Please install the stable version using pip command:
$ pip install wormhole-proxyYou can install the development snapshot from the main branch on GitHub using the following command:
$ pip install git+https://github.com/cwt/wormhole.git@mainOr install from your local clone:
$ git clone https://github.com/cwt/wormhole.git
$ cd wormhole/
$ pip install -e .You can also install the latest snapshot from the main branch using the following command:
$ pip install https://github.com/cwt/wormhole/archive/refs/heads/main.tar.gz-
Run wormhole command
$ wormhole
-
Set browser's proxy setting to
host: 127.0.0.1 port: 8800
Wormhole includes built-in tools to securely manage users. These commands will prompt you to enter and confirm passwords interactively.
-
To create an authentication file and add a new user:
$ wormhole --auth-add wormhole.passwd <username>
-
To change an existing user's password:
$ wormhole --auth-mod wormhole.passwd <username>
-
To delete a user:
$ wormhole --auth-del wormhole.passwd <username>
-
To run the proxy with authentication enabled:
$ wormhole --auth wormhole.passwd
-
Update the ad-block database:
$ wormhole --update-ad-block-db ads.sqlite3
-
Run Wormhole with the ad-blocker enabled:
$ wormhole --ad-block-db ads.sqlite3
Note: If you used
--allowlistand--blocklistduring the--update-ad-block-dbstep, you still need to specify these options when running the server to apply them at runtime. The--update-ad-block-dbstep incorporates the allowlist/blocklist into the database, while server runtime options are applied separately for live filtering with the documented priority order.
Wormhole can route all outbound traffic through a private, locally spawned tor daemon:
$ pip install 'wormhole-proxy[tor]' # once, for python-socks and stem
$ wormhole --torThe tor daemon itself must be installed with your system package manager. On
censored networks, Wormhole tries a direct connection first, then obfs4 and
webtunnel when their transport binaries are available, and snowflake
only when --tor-snowflake is given (snowflake is slower to bootstrap).
Fedora 44 (installs the snowflake and webtunnel transports):
$ sudo dnf copr enable vgaetera/extras
$ sudo dnf install tor snowflake webtunnelThen run with the transports enabled:
$ wormhole --tor --tor-snowflakeThe first visit to an onion service can take a couple of minutes while Tor fetches its descriptor; subsequent visits are fast.
Use --tor-bridge "obfs4 <address> <fingerprint> <params>" (repeatable) or
--tor-bridge-file PATH to supply your own bridges from
BridgeDB, and --tor-binary PATH if the
daemon is not in PATH. If every attempt fails, Wormhole reports whether Tor
appears blocked or the network is offline: exit status 2 means tor or the
optional dependencies are missing, and 3 means all bootstrap attempts failed.
$ wormhole --helpThe output will be similar to this:
usage: wormhole [-h] [-H HOST] [-p PORT] [--allow-private] [--auto-ipv6]
[-S SYSLOG_HOST] [-P SYSLOG_PORT] [-l] [-v] [--auth AUTH_FILE]
[--auth-add <AUTH_FILE> <USERNAME>]
[--auth-mod <AUTH_FILE> <USERNAME>]
[--auth-del <AUTH_FILE> <USERNAME>]
[--ad-block-db AD_BLOCK_DB] [--update-ad-block-db DB_PATH]
[--allowlist ALLOWLIST] [--blocklist BLOCKLIST] [--tor]
[--tor-binary PATH] [--tor-bridge BRIDGE_LINE]
[--tor-bridge-file PATH] [--tor-timeout SECONDS]
[--tor-data-dir PATH] [--tor-pt-dir PATH] [--tor-no-bridges]
[--tor-snowflake] [--tor-isolate-dest]
Wormhole (3.6.0): Asynchronous I/O HTTP/S Proxy
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-H, --host HOST Host address to bind [default: 0.0.0.0]
-p, --port PORT Port to listen on [default: 8800]
--allow-private Allow proxying to private and reserved IP addresses
(disabled by default)
--auto-ipv6 Automatically detect IPv6 availability and restart
server when IPv6 becomes available
-S, --syslog-host SYSLOG_HOST
Syslog host or path (e.g., /dev/log)
-P, --syslog-port SYSLOG_PORT
Syslog port [default: 514]
-l, --license Print license information and exit
-v, --verbose Increase verbosity (-v, -vv)
Authentication Options:
--auth AUTH_FILE Enable Digest authentication using the specified file.
--auth-add <AUTH_FILE> <USERNAME>
Add a user to the authentication file and exit.
--auth-mod <AUTH_FILE> <USERNAME>
Modify a user's password in the authentication file
and exit.
--auth-del <AUTH_FILE> <USERNAME>
Delete a user from the authentication file and exit.
Ad-Blocker Options:
--ad-block-db AD_BLOCK_DB
Path to the SQLite database file containing domains to
block.
--update-ad-block-db DB_PATH
Fetch public ad-block lists and compile them into a
database file, then exit.
--allowlist ALLOWLIST
Path to a file of domains to extend the default
allowlist.
--blocklist BLOCKLIST
Path to a file of domains to block (inverted
allowlist).
Tor Options:
--tor Route all outbound traffic through a private local tor
daemon.
--tor-binary PATH Path to the tor binary [default: search PATH].
--tor-bridge BRIDGE_LINE
Bridge line to use (repeatable, forms a pool); implies
--tor.
--tor-bridge-file PATH
File with one bridge line per line; implies --tor.
--tor-timeout SECONDS
Bootstrap timeout per attempt [default: 90].
--tor-data-dir PATH Directory for persistent Tor state [default: platform
data dir].
--tor-pt-dir PATH Directory containing pluggable transport binaries.
--tor-no-bridges Only try a direct Tor connection (skip the bridge
ladder).
--tor-snowflake Enable the snowflake bridge rung (slow to bootstrap).
--tor-isolate-dest Isolate streams per destination address.
Official images are available at quay.io/cwt/wormhole.
Pull the desired version tag from Quay.io.
# Replace <tag> with a specific version, e.g., v3.6.0
podman pull quay.io/cwt/wormhole:<tag>To run Wormhole on the default port 8800 without authentication or ad-blocking:
podman run --rm -it -p 8800:8800 quay.io/cwt/wormhole:<tag>Step A: Create the ad-block database on your host
First, you need to have a local config path to save the generated database file.
mkdir -p /path/to/config # change this to your desired pathThen, run the following command to create the ad-block database file:
podman run --rm -it -v /path/to/config:/config quay.io/cwt/wormhole:<tag> wormhole --update-ad-block-db /config/ads.sqlite3This will create a file named ads.sqlite3 in /path/to/config/ on your host.
Step B: Run the container with the database mounted
Now, run the container, mounting the ads.sqlite3 file into the container's /config directory.
# Using :ro mounts the database as read-only for better security.
podman run --rm -it -p 8800:8800 \
-v /path/to/config/ads.sqlite3:/config/ads.sqlite3:ro \
quay.io/cwt/wormhole:<tag> \
wormhole --ad-block-db /config/ads.sqlite3Step A: Create an authentication file
First, you need to have a local config path to save the generated authentication file.
mkdir -p /path/to/config # change this to your desired pathRun a temporary container to create the authentication file. You will be prompted to enter a password for the new user.
# Replace <username> with your desired username
podman run --rm -it -v /path/to/config:/config quay.io/cwt/wormhole:<tag> \
wormhole --auth-add /config/wormhole.passwd <username>Step B: Run the container with the auth file mounted
Mount the authentication file into the /config directory.
# Replace /path/to/config with the absolute path to your wormhole.passwd file.
podman run --rm -it -p 8800:8800 \
-v /path/to/config/wormhole.passwd:/config/wormhole.passwd:ro \
quay.io/cwt/wormhole:<tag> \
wormhole -a /config/wormhole.passwd(Note: You can use docker in place of podman for all examples.)
Wormhole can automatically detect when IPv6 becomes available on your system and restart the server to enable dual-stack support. This is especially useful when moving between networks where IPv6 availability changes.
To enable this feature, use the --auto-ipv6 flag:
wormhole --auto-ipv6When this flag is enabled, Wormhole will:
- Periodically check for IPv6 availability
- Automatically restart the server with dual-stack support when IPv6 becomes available
- Continue to monitor for network changes
This feature is particularly useful for mobile users who move between networks with different IPv6 support.
MIT License (included in the source distribution)
- This project is forked and converted to Mercurial from WARP on GitHub.
- Now we are back on GitHub again.