dispatch

A SOCKS proxy that balances traffic between network interfaces.

Should work on macOS, Windows, and Linux. Only tested on macOS for now.

This is a Rust rewrite of dispatch-proxy, originally written in CoffeeScript and targeting Node.js.

Quick links

• Installation
• Rationale
• Use Cases
• Usage
• Examples
• How It Works
• License

Installation

From pre-built binaries

You can download pre-built binaries for macOS, Windows, and Linux from the releases page.

From crates.io

You'll need Rust version 1.51.0 or later. You can use rustup to install the latest version of the Rust compiler toolchain.

cargo install dispatch-proxy

Rationale

You often find yourself with multiple unused internet connections—be it 5G mobile hotspot or a free Wi-Fi network—that your system won't let you use alongside your primary one.

For instance, my first student residence used to provide me with cabled and wireless internet accesses. Both were separately capped at a bandwidth 1,200kB/s. My 3G mobile internet access provided me with an additional 400kB/s. Combining all of these with dispatch and a download manager resulted in a 2,800kB/s effective bandwidth!

Use cases

The possibilities are endless:

• Use it with a download manager or a BitTorrent client, combining multiple connections' bandwidth when downloading single files;
• Combine as many interfaces as you have access to into a single load-balanced interface;
• Run different apps on separate interfaces with multiple proxies (e.g. for balancing download/upload);
• Create a hotspot proxy at home that connects through Ethernet and your 5G card for all your mobile devices;
• etc.

Usage

$ dispatch
A SOCKS proxy that balances traffic between network interfaces.

Usage: dispatch [OPTIONS] <COMMAND>

Commands:
  list   Lists all available network interfaces
  start  Starts the SOCKS proxy server
  help   Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Options:
  -d, --debug    Write debug logs to stdout instead of a file
  -h, --help     Print help
  -V, --version  Print version

$ dispatch start -h
Starts the SOCKS proxy server

Usage: dispatch start [OPTIONS] <ADDRESSES>...

Arguments:
  <ADDRESSES>...  The network interface IP addresses to dispatch to, in the form of <address>[/priority]

Options:
      --ip <IP>      Which IP to accept connections from [default: 127.0.0.1]
      --port <PORT>  Which port to listen to for connections [default: 1080]
  -h, --help         Print help

Examples

$ dispatch list

Lists all available network interfaces.

$ dispatch start 10.0.0.0 fdaa:bbcc:ddee:0:1:2:3:4

Dispatch incoming connections to local addresses 10.0.0.0 and fdaa:bbcc:ddee:0:1:2:3:4.

$ dispatch start 10.0.0.0/7 10.0.0.1/3

Dispatch incoming connections to 10.0.0.0 7 times out of 10 and to 10.0.0.1 3 times out of 10.

How It Works

Whenever the SOCKS proxy server receives an connection request to an address or domain, it selects one of the provided local addresses using the Weighted Round Robin algorithm. All further connection traffic will then go through the interface corresponding to the selected local address.

Beware: If the requested address or domain resolves to an IPv4 (resp. IPv6) address, an IPv4 (resp. IPv6) local address must be provided.

License