iodine/man/iodine.8

.\" groff -man -Tascii iodine.8
.TH IODINE 8 "JUN 2007" "User Manuals"
.SH NAME
iodine, iodined \- tunnel IPv4 over DNS
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B iodine [-v]

.B iodine [-h]

.B iodine [-f] [-u
.I user
.B ] [-P
.I password
.B ] [-t
.I chrootdir
.B ] [-d
.I device
.B ]
.I nameserver
.I topdomain

.B iodined [-v]

.B iodined [-h]

.B iodined [-f] [-u
.I user
.B ] [-P
.I password
.B ] [-t
.I chrootdir
.B ] [-m
.I mtu
.B ] [-l
.I listen_ip
.B ] [-d
.I device
.B ]
.I tunnel_ip
.I topdomain
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B iodine
lets you tunnel IPv4 data through a DNS 
server. This can be useful in situations where Internet access is firewalled,
but DNS queries are allowed. It needs a TUN/TAP device to operate. The 
bandwidth is asymmetrical with limited upstream and up to 1 Mbit/s downstream.
.B iodine
is the client application,
.B iodined
is the server.
.SH OPTIONS
.SS Common Options:
.TP
.B -v
Print version info and exit.
.TP
.B -h
Print usage info and exit.
.TP
.B -f
Keep running in foreground.
.TP
.B -u user
Drop privileges and run as user 'user' after setting up tunnel.
.TP
.B -t chrootdir
Chroot to 'chrootdir' after setting up tunnel.
.TP
.B -P password
Use 'password' to authenticate. If not used, 
.B stdin
will be used as input. Only the first 32 characters will be used.
.TP
.B -d device
Use the TUN device 'device' instead of the normal one, which is dnsX on Linux
and otherwise tunX.
.SS Server Options:
.TP
.B -m mtu
Set 'mtu' as mtu size for the tunnel device. This will be sent to the client
on connect, and the client will use the same mtu.
.TP
.B -l listen_ip
Make the server listen only on 'listen_ip' instead of on 0.0.0.0 for incoming
connections.
.TP
.B -p port
Make the server listen on 'port' instead of 53 for traffic. 
.B Note:
You must make sure the dns requests are forwarded to this port yourself.
.SS Client Arguments:
.TP
.B nameserver
The nameserver to use to relay the dns traffic. This can be any relaying
nameserver  or the ip number of the server running iodined if reachable.
Normally, you should specify a nameserver from your 
.I /etc/resolv.conf
file.
.TP
.B topdomain
The dns traffic will be sent as querys of type NULL for subdomains under
\'topdomain'. This is normally a subdomain to a domain you own. Use a short
domain name to get better throughput. If 
.B nameserver
is the iodined server, then the topdomain can be chosen freely. This argument
must be the same on both the client and the server.
.SS Server Arguments:
.TP
.B tunnel_ip
This is the servers ip address on the tunnel interface. The client will be
given the next ip number in the range. It is recommended to use the 
10.0.0.0/8 or 172.16.0.0/12 ranges.
.TP
.B topdomain
The dns traffic will is expected to be sent as querys of type NULL for 
subdomains under 'topdomain'. This is normally a subdomain to a domain you 
own. Use a short domain name to get better throughput. This argument must be 
the same on both the client and the server.
.SH EXAMPLES
.SS Quickstart:
.TP
Try it out within your own LAN! Follow these simple steps:
.TP
- On your server, run: ./iodined -f 10.0.0.1 test.asdf
(If you already use the 10.0.0.0 network, use another internal net like 
172.16.0.0)
.TP
- Enter a password
.TP
- On the client, run: ./iodine -f 192.168.0.1 test.asdf
(Replace 192.168.0.1 with the server's ip address)
.TP
- Enter the same password
.TP
- Now the client has the tunnel ip 10.0.0.2 and the server has 10.0.0.1
.TP
- Try pinging each other through the tunnel
.TP
- Done! :)
.TP
To actually use it through a relaying nameserver, see below.
.SS Full setup:

.TP
.B Server side:
To use this tunnel, you need control over a real domain (like mytunnel.com),
and a server with a static public IP number that does not yet run a DNS
server. Then, delegate a subdomain (say, tunnel1.mytunnel.com) to the server.
If you use BIND for the domain, add these lines to the zone file (replace
10.15.213.99 with your server ip):

.nf
tunnel1host	IN	A	10.15.213.99
tunnel1		IN	NS	tunnel1host.mytunnel.com.
.fi

Now any DNS querys for domains ending with tunnel1.mytunnnel.com will be sent
to your server. Start iodined on the server. The first argument is the tunnel
IP address (like 192.168.99.1) and the second is the assigned domain (in this
case tunnel1.mytunnel.com). The -f argument will keep iodined running in the
foreground, which helps when testing. iodined will start a virtual interface,
and also start listening for DNS queries on UDP port 53. Either enter a
password on the commandline (-P pass) or after the server has started. Now 
everything is ready for the client.
.TP
.B Client side: 
All the setup is done, just start iodine. It also takes two
arguments, the first is the local relaying DNS server and the second is the
domain used (tunnel1.mytunnnel.com). If DNS queries are allowed to any
computer, you can use the tunnel endpoint (example: 10.15.213.99 or
tunnel1host.mytunnel.com) as the first argument. The tunnel interface will get
an IP close to the servers (in this case 192.168.99.2) and a suitable MTU. 
Enter the same password as on the server either by argument or after the client
has started. Now you should be able to ping the other end of the tunnel from 
either side.  
.TP
.B Routing:
The normal case is to route all traffic through the DNS tunnel. To do this, first
add a route to the nameserver you use with the default gateway as gateway. Then
replace the default gateway with the servers IP address within the DNS tunnel,
and configure the server to do NAT.
.TP
.B MTU issues:
Some relaying DNS servers enforce a 512 byte packet limit. All larger packets are
simply dropped. If you can ping through the tunnel but not login via SSH, this is
most likely the case. Set the MTU on the server to 220 to ensure that all packets
are less than 512 bytes. This will however greatly affect performance.
.SH BUGS
File bugs at http://dev.kryo.se/iodine/
.SH AUTHORS
Erik Ekman <yarrick@kryo.se> and Bjorn Andersson <flex@kryo.se>