mirror of https://github.com/ekzhang/bore.git
126 lines
5.7 KiB
Markdown
126 lines
5.7 KiB
Markdown
# bore
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[](https://github.com/ekzhang/bore/actions)
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[](https://crates.io/crates/bore-cli)
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A modern, simple TCP tunnel in Rust that exposes local ports to a remote server, bypassing standard NAT connection firewalls. **That's all it does: no more, and no less.**
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```shell
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# Installation (requires Rust)
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cargo install bore-cli
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# On your local machine
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bore local 8000 --to bore.pub
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```
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This will expose your local port at `localhost:8000` to the public internet at `bore.pub:<PORT>`, where the port number is assigned randomly.
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Similar to [localtunnel](https://github.com/localtunnel/localtunnel) and [ngrok](https://ngrok.io/), except `bore` is intended to be a highly efficient, unopinionated tool for forwarding TCP traffic that is simple to install and easy to self-host, with no frills attached.
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(`bore` totals less than 400 lines of safe, async Rust code and is trivial to set up — just run a single binary for the client and server.)
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## Installation
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You can build the `bore` CLI command from source using [Cargo](https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/), the Rust package manager. This command installs the `bore` binary at a user-accessible path.
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```shell
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cargo install bore-cli
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```
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We also publish versioned Docker images for each release. Each image is built for AMD 64-bit and Arm 64-bit architectures. They're tagged with the specific version and allow you to run the statically-linked `bore` binary from a minimal "scratch" container.
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```shell
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docker run -it --init --rm --network host ekzhang/bore <ARGS>
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```
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## Detailed Usage
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This section describes detailed usage for the `bore` CLI command.
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### Local Forwarding
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You can forward a port on your local machine by using the `bore local` command. This takes a positional argument, the local port to forward, as well as a mandatory `--to` option, which specifies the address of the remote server.
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```shell
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bore local 5000 --to bore.pub
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```
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You can optionally pass in a `--port` option to pick a specific port on the remote to expose, although the command will fail if this port is not available. Also, passing `--local-host` allows you to expose a different host on your local area network besides the loopback address `localhost`.
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The full options are shown below.
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```shell
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bore-local 0.2.3
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Starts a local proxy to the remote server
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USAGE:
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bore local [OPTIONS] --to <TO> <LOCAL_PORT>
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ARGS:
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<LOCAL_PORT> The local port to expose
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OPTIONS:
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-h, --help Print help information
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-l, --local-host <HOST> The local host to expose [default: localhost]
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-p, --port <PORT> Optional port on the remote server to select [default: 0]
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-s, --secret <SECRET> Optional secret for authentication [env: BORE_SECRET]
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-t, --to <TO> Address of the remote server to expose local ports to
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-V, --version Print version information
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```
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### Self-Hosting
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As mentioned in the startup instructions, there is a public instance of the `bore` server running at `bore.pub`. However, if you want to self-host `bore` on your own network, you can do so with the following command:
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```shell
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bore server
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```
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That's all it takes! After the server starts running at a given address, you can then update the `bore local` command with option `--to <ADDRESS>` to forward a local port to this remote server.
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The full options for the `bore server` command are shown below.
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```shell
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bore-server 0.2.3
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Runs the remote proxy server
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USAGE:
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bore server [OPTIONS]
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OPTIONS:
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-h, --help Print help information
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--min-port <MIN_PORT> Minimum TCP port number to accept [default: 1024]
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-s, --secret <SECRET> Optional secret for authentication [env: BORE_SECRET]
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-V, --version Print version information
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```
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## Protocol
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There is an implicit _control port_ at `7835`, used for creating new connections on demand. At initialization, the client sends a "Hello" message to the server on the TCP control port, asking to proxy a selected remote port. The server then responds with an acknowledgement and begins listening for external TCP connections.
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Whenever the server obtains a connection on the remote port, it generates a secure [UUID](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier) for that connection and sends it back to the client. The client then opens a separate TCP stream to the server and sends an "Accept" message containing the UUID on that stream. The server then proxies the two connections between each other.
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For correctness reasons and to avoid memory leaks, incoming connections are only stored by the server for up to 10 seconds before being discarded if the client does not accept them.
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## Authentication
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On a custom deployment of `bore server`, you can optionally require a _secret_ to prevent the server from being used by others. The protocol requires clients to verify possession of the secret on each TCP connection by answering random challenges in the form of HMAC codes. (This secret is only used for the initial handshake, and no further traffic is encrypted by default.)
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```shell
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# on the server
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bore server --secret my_secret_string
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# on the client
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bore local <LOCAL_PORT> --to <TO> --secret my_secret_string
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```
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`BORE_SECRET` environment variable can also be used for setting the secret for client/server.
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## Acknowledgements
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Created by Eric Zhang ([@ekzhang1](https://twitter.com/ekzhang1)). Licensed under the [MIT license](LICENSE).
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The author would like to thank the contributors and maintainers of the [Tokio](https://tokio.rs/) project for making it possible to write ergonomic and efficient network services in Rust.
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