25606 - SOCKS - "runsocks" wrapper does not work

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Core :: Networking, defect, P3)

Description

[Jon Zeppieri]

The SOCKS reference implementation (http://www.socks.nec.com/) provides a simple
wrapper script, called "runsocks" for automatically SOCKS-ifying dynamically
linked programs.  Basically, it preloads (LD_PRELOAD) the libsocks5_sh.so
library.  Since Mozilla does not have built-in SOCKS support (like Communicator
4.x), using runsocks seemed like a good way to get SOCKS support. 

Mozilla will not successfully load any pages when it is being run under
runsocks.  Generally, it spins for awhile, during which the status bar reads,
"Transferring data from xxx.xxx.xxx."  Then, it stops and claims to have
successfully loaded the page, though nothing appears in the window.

Incidentally, I am aware that the run-mozilla.sh script is somewhat incompatible
with the runsocks script, as both of them fiddle with the LD_LIBRARY_PATH (at
least, on Linux).  However, I have tried altering the run-mozilla.sh script
directly, to preload the libsocks5_sh.so, and it still exhibits the broken
behavior.

I am running Debian "Potato" and the very latest SOCKS release.
You will, of course, need a SOCKS proxy to reproduce this problem.

Comment 1

[Warren Harris]

Moving what's not done for M15 to M16.

Comment 2

[Gagan]

SOCKS is helpwanted.

Comment 3

[[e-mail]]

Now that SOCKS V5 is implemented (in 16103), is there any reason this is still 
open?

The bug seems to be offering runsocks as a workaround to built-in SOCKS, not as 
a separate feature.

Comment 4

[Jon Zeppieri]

Yes, I filed this bug report before SOCKS had been implemented.  I thought that
perhaps it would be easier to get Mozilla running with NEC's SOCKS
implementation, rather than re-implementing it in Mozilla.

But now it's built-in, so there's really no point in keeping this open.

Comment 5

[[e-mail]]

clarified Summary 
resolved to WONTFIX

Comment 6

[benc]

QA to me.
VERIFIED:
someone also mentioned that NEC code would create a license conflict...