Setting up proxychains

Sometimes, we need to remain untraceable while performing a pentest activity. Proxychains helps us by allowing us to use an intermediary system whose IP can be left in the logs of the system without the worry of it tracing back to us.

Proxychains is a tool that allows any application to follow the connection via proxy, such as SOCKS5 and Tor.

How to do it...

Proxychains is already installed in Kali. However, we need a list of proxies in its configuration file that we want to use:

1. To do that, we open the config file of proxychains in a text editor with this command:

leafpad /etc/proxychains.conf

The following screenshot shows the output of the preceding command:

We can add all the proxies we want in the place highlighted in the previous screenshot and then save. Proxychains also allows us to use dynamic chain or random chain while connection to proxyservers.

2. In the config file, uncomment dynamic_chain or random_chain. The following screenshot shows the output of the preceding command:

Using proxychains with Tor

1. To use proxychains with Tor, we first need to install Tor using the following command:

apt-get install tor

2. Once it is installed, we run Tor by typing tor in the Terminal.
3. We then open another Terminal and type the following command to use an application via proxychains:

proxychains toolname –arguments

The following screenshot shows the output of the preceding command:

Now let's have a look at the Routerhunter tool in the next recipe.