frp

README | 中文文档

What is frp?

frp is a fast reverse proxy to help you expose a local server behind a NAT or firewall to the internet. Now, it supports tcp, http and https protocol when requests can be forwarded by domains to backward web services.

Catalog

• What can I do with frp?
• Status
• Architecture
• Example Usage
  • Communicate with your computer in LAN by SSH
  • Visit your web service in LAN by custom domains
• Features
  • Dashboard
  • Authentication
  • Encryption and Compression
  • Reload configures without frps stopped
  • Privilege Mode
    • Port White List
  • Connection Pool
  • Rewriting the Host Header
• Development Plan
• Contributing
• Contributors

What can I do with frp?

• Expose any http and https service behind a NAT or firewall to the internet by a server with public IP address(Name-based Virtual Host Support).
• Expose any tcp service behind a NAT or firewall to the internet by a server with public IP address.
• Inspect all http requests/responses that are transmitted over the tunnel(future).

Status

frp is under development and you can try it with latest release version. Master branch for releasing stable version when dev branch for developing.

We may change any protocol and can't promise backward compatible. Please check the release log when upgrading.

Architecture

Example Usage

Firstly, download the latest programs from Release page according to your os and arch.

Put frps and frps.ini to your server with public IP.

Put frpc and frpc.ini to your server in LAN.

Communicate with your computer in LAN by SSH

1. Modify frps.ini, configure a reverse proxy named [ssh]:

# frps.ini
[common]
bind_port = 7000

[ssh]
listen_port = 6000
auth_token = 123

2. Start frps:

./frps -c ./frps.ini

3. Modify frpc.ini, set remote frps's server IP as x.x.x.x:

# frpc.ini
[common]
server_addr = x.x.x.x
server_port = 7000
auth_token = 123

[ssh]
local_port = 22

4. Start frpc:

./frpc -c ./frpc.ini

5. Connect to server in LAN by ssh assuming that username is test:

ssh -oPort=6000 test@x.x.x.x

Visit your web service in LAN by custom domains

Sometimes we want to expose a local web service behind a NAT network to others for testing with your own domain name and unfortunately we can't resolve a domain name to a local ip.

Howerver, we can expose a http or https service using frp.

1. Modify frps.ini, configure a http reverse proxy named [web] and set http port as 8080, custom domain as www.yourdomain.com:

# frps.ini
[common]
bind_port = 7000
vhost_http_port = 8080

[web]
type = http
custom_domains = www.yourdomain.com
auth_token = 123

2. Start frps:

./frps -c ./frps.ini

3. Modify frpc.ini and set remote frps server's IP as x.x.x.x. The local_port is the port of your web service:

# frpc.ini
[common]
server_addr = x.x.x.x
server_port = 7000
auth_token = 123

[web]
type = http
local_port = 80

4. Start frpc:

./frpc -c ./frpc.ini

5. Resolve A record of www.yourdomain.com to IP x.x.x.x or CNAME record to your origin domain.

6. Now visit your local web service using url http://www.yourdomain.com:8080.

Features

Dashboard

Check frp's status and proxies's statistics information by Dashboard.

Configure a port for dashboard to enable this feature:

[common]
dashboard_port = 7500
# dashboard's username and password are both optional，if not set, default is admin.
dashboard_username = abc
dashboard_password = abc

Then visit http://[server_addr]:7500 to see dashboard, default username and password are both admin.

Authentication

auth_token in frps.ini is configured for each proxy and check for authentication when frpc login in.

Client that want's to register must set a global auth_token equals to frps.ini.

Note that time duration bewtween frpc and frps mustn't exceed 15 minutes because timestamp is used for authentication.

Encryption and Compression

Defalut value is false, you could decide if the proxy will use encryption or compression whether the type is:

# frpc.ini
[ssh]
type = tcp
listen_port = 6000
auth_token = 123
use_encryption = true
use_gzip = true

Reload configures without frps stopped

If your want to add a new reverse proxy and avoid restarting frps, you can use this function:

1. dashboard_port should be set in frps.ini:

# frps.ini
[common]
bind_port = 7000
dashboard_port = 7500

2. Start frps:

./frps -c ./frps.ini

3. Modify frps.ini to add a new proxy [new_ssh]:

# frps.ini
[common]
bind_port = 7000
dashboard_port = 7500

[new_ssh]
listen_port = 6001
auth_token = 123

4. Execute reload command:

./frps -c ./frps.ini --reload

5. Start frpc and [new_ssh] is available now.

Privilege Mode

Privilege mode is used for who don't want to do operations in frps everytime adding a new proxy.

All proxies's configurations are set in frpc.ini when privilege mode is enabled.

1. Enable privilege mode and set privilege_token.Client with the same privilege_token can create proxy automaticly:

# frps.ini
[common]
bind_port = 7000
privilege_mode = true
privilege_token = 1234

2. Start frps:

./frps -c ./frps.ini

3. Enable privilege mode for proxy [ssh]:

# frpc.ini
[common]
server_addr = x.x.x.x
server_port = 7000
privilege_token = 1234

[ssh]
privilege_mode = true
local_port = 22
remote_port = 6000

4. Start frpc:

./frpc -c ./frpc.ini

5. Connect to server in LAN by ssh assuming username is test:

ssh -oPort=6000 test@x.x.x.x

Port White List

privilege_allow_ports in frps.ini is used for preventing abuse of ports in privilege mode:

# frps.ini
[common]
privilege_mode = true
privilege_token = 1234
privilege_allow_ports = 2000-3000,3001,3003,4000-50000

privilege_allow_ports consists of a specific port or a range of ports divided by ,.

Connection Pool

By default, frps send message to frpc for create a new connection to backward service when getting an user request.If a proxy's connection pool is enabled, there will be a specified number of connections pre-established.

This feature is fit for a large number of short connections.

1. Configure the limit of pool count each proxy can use in frps.ini:

# frps.ini
[common]
max_pool_count = 50

2. Enable and specify the number of connection pool:

# frpc.ini
[ssh]
type = tcp
local_port = 22
pool_count = 10

Rewriting the Host Header

When forwarding to a local port, frp does not modify the tunneled HTTP requests at all, they are copied to your server byte-for-byte as they are received. Some application servers use the Host header for determining which development site to display. For this reason, frp can rewrite your requests with a modified Host header. Use the host_header_rewrite switch to rewrite incoming HTTP requests.

# frpc.ini                                                         
[web]
privilege_mode = true
type = http
local_port = 80
custom_domains = test.yourdomain.com
host_header_rewrite = dev.yourdomain.com

If host_header_rewrite is specified, the Host header will be rewritten to match the hostname portion of the forwarding address.

Development Plan

• Support udp protocol.
• Support wildcard domain name.
• Url router.
• Load balance to different service in frpc.
• Debug mode for frpc, prestent proxy status in terminal.
• Inspect all http requests/responses that are transmitted over the tunnel.
• Frpc can directly be a webserver for static files.
• Full control mode, dynamically modify frpc's configure with dashboard in frps.
• P2p communicate by make udp hole to penetrate NAT.

Contributing

Interested in getting involved? We would like to help you!

• Take a look at our issues list and consider submitting a patch to dev branch.
• If you have some wanderful ideas, send email to fatedier@gmail.com.

Note: We prefer you to give your advise in issues, so others with a same question can search it quickly and we don't need to answer them repeatly.

Contributors

• fatedier
• Hurricanezwf
• vashstorm
• maodanp