Use Apps
The Nym SOCKS5 Client was built in the building nym section. If you haven’t yet built Nym and want to run the code on this page, go there first.
Nym is a general purpose system. We aim to provide the strongest possible protections for internet traffic and transactions.
The system is still very young, but it’s starting to be able to do useful work. You can start using it today.
Many existing applications are able to use the SOCKS5 proxy protocol. They can use the nym-socks5-client to bounce their network traffic through the Nym network, like this:
The Nym network already runs the mixnet, and the nym-network-requester / nym-client parts. In order to use existing applications with Nym, you only need to set up the nym-socks5-client.
Note that the nym-network-requester we’re running works only for specific applications. We are not running an open proxy, we have an allowed list of applications that can use the mixnet (currently Blockstream Green, Electrum, and KeyBase). We can add other applications upon request, just come talk to us in our dev chat. Or, you can set up your own nym-network-requester, it’s not very hard to do if you have access to a server.
Running the nym-socks5-client
Obligatory disclaimer time: The Nym mixnet is still under construction and has not undergone a security audit. Do not rely on it for strong privacy (yet).
After building the Nym platform code, initialize nym-socks5-client:
nym-socks5-client init --id my-socks5-client --provider 97ZmBBTmo36AycqJCXuJy9ZNgnNbpRUr4axHiCsj7hSA.A6sRP3jVPinPeJnGi4umoBMumQFZaqEoxKHk8mJhioHi@DiYR9o8KgeQ81woKPYVAu4LNaAEg8SWkiufDCahNnPov
The --provider field needs to be filled with the Nym address of a nym-network-requester that can make network requests on your behalf. The one above is the initial Nym one, but you can run your own if you want.
Then run the socks5 client locally:
nym-socks5-client run --id my-socks5-client
This will start up a SOCKS5 proxy on your local machine, at localhost:1080.
In the next few sections, we will show you how to run it with some existing applications. Later, we will discuss how you can use any application that can use SOCKS5 with Nym.