Some proxy traffic is not recorded
2 posts · Closed
During a test run of NetWorx, I happened to find a "corner case" where some traffic through my proxy setup is not being recorded, possibly related to LAN traffic detection.
Here is my setup diagram, the arrow indicates data flow direction:
https://img.vim-cn.com/ef/a7c6762098dd38d198f6c8fa8ebd3be68d38c1.png
0. NetWorx running on computer A, with "Ignore LAN traffic" option enabled;
- Download files from mega.nz via a 3rd-party CLI tool megatools on computer A;
- mega.nz data comes in through a SOCKS5 proxy written in Node.js, running on computer A;
- A second computer B converts this SOCKS5 proxy to an HTTP proxy via the tool polipo;
- Ultimately, the downloading tool megatools downloads data via the converted HTTP proxy Polipo on computer B.
(This detour was because at first I did not figure out that megatools could directly take an HTTP proxy)
Expected behaviour: Incoming traffic should be logged in NetWorx. Since ultimately, mega.nz data comes in from WAN via the Node.js SOCKS proxy on computer A, which is not LAN traffic, the incoming traffic of Node.js in the Applications tab should grow.
Actual behaviour: In the Applications tab, incoming traffic to Node.js did not grow.
If I turn off "Ignore LAN traffic", incoming traffic to Node.js is correctly logged.
Later I discovered megatools could directly take a SOCKS5 proxy, eliminating the Polipo detour. This way, incoming traffic to Node.js is correctly logged in NetWorx.
Screenshot of undetected traffic:
https://img.vim-cn.com/e1/d9aec928f2ca1303a3c844244aef7f47e2e756.png
I understand this is a rare corner case that does not represent 99.9% of regular users, but I think this is a somewhat interesting case that may reveal some potential issue. This ultimately does not affect usability in my setup, so I just presented the case here in case the developers find it useful.
Thanks in advance!
It's a little hard to understand what exactly you are doing with that proxy conversion, but the explanation of the outcome is simple: as computer A receives data from computer B, from the point of view of NetWorx it's a local connection whose traffic is disregarded.
This could be worked around by either removing computer B IP address from the excluded ranges (the Setup button next to Ignore local traffic within the LAN); or, as you already discovered, simply by eliminating the detour, in which case the traffic is recorded as Internet.