Tor

SOCKS5 Proxy Guide: Routing Traffic Through Tor with proxychains4

October 21, 2026
Security, Networking, Tor, Proxychains

This is a quick guide to routing command-line traffic through a SOCKS5 proxy using Tor Browser’s built-in Tor instance and proxychains4.

Why use a SOCKS5 proxy #

Routing traffic through a SOCKS5 proxy lets you make requests that exit from a different IP than your own, useful for testing.

Prerequisites #

  • Tor Browser installed and running (its bundled Tor instance listens on 127.0.0.1:9150 by default, this is different from the system tor package, which uses port 9050)
  • proxychains4 installed

1. Install proxychains4 # 

sudo apt install proxychains4

2. Point it at Tor Browser’s SOCKS5 port #

Confirm Tor Browser’s proxy is actually listening: