Install torsocks with Homebrew, apk, apt, dnf, MacPorts, Nix, pacman

Project links

• Homepage
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• torsocks

Project history

torsocks exists to solve a practical gap around the tor daemon: many applications speak TCP but do not know how to use Tor's SOCKS proxy safely. torsocks wraps an application with LD_PRELOAD and overrides libc networking calls such as connect and gethostbyname so the application's traffic is forced through Tor when the mechanism is applicable.

The Tor Project blog announced torsocks 1.2 in October 2011 as a Linux, BSD, and Mac OS X application for using network applications such as ssh and irssi with Tor. That release focused on adding a test suite, cleaning source code, simplifying the build, compiling on more BSD versions, and adding leak-prevention defenses.

By August 2014, Tor Weekly News said torsocks 2.0 was considered stable after more than a year of effort, describing it as a wrapper program that forces an application's network connections through Tor. Later Tor Project writing about oniux in 2025 used torsocks as the established comparison point and explained its libc-overriding approach and leak limitations.

Adoption history

torsocks became a standard companion package for command-line Tor users because it lets existing tools like ssh, irssi, curl-like clients, and other dynamically linked libc applications attempt network access through Tor without those applications adding native SOCKS support.

The input package facts show torsocks packaged across Homebrew, Debian/Ubuntu via libtorsocks, Fedora/dnf, Arch/pacman, Nix, MacPorts, apk, and zypper. That breadth reflects its role as a small Unix privacy utility commonly installed beside tor.

How it is used

The README's basic usage is torsocks [application], with torsocks ssh username@host as an example. It also documents direct LD_PRELOAD usage with libtorsocks.so, and warns that applications using raw syscalls or bypassing libc cannot be protected by this mechanism.

The wrapper reads /etc/tor/torsocks.conf or a TORSOCKS_CONF_FILE override, and otherwise uses sensible defaults for common Tor installations. Package nerds use it for quick torification of terminal tools, circuit isolation experiments, and privacy-aware testing where a full network namespace or VM would be heavier.

Why package nerds care

torsocks is a classic package-nerd tool because it is small, composable, and sharp-edged: it gives ordinary commands a Tor routing context, but its README clearly states the LD_PRELOAD ceiling. That makes it useful and also educational for understanding where user-space wrappers stop and stronger isolation begins.

Its continued relevance is visible in Tor Project's 2025 oniux announcement, which presents oniux as a newer alternative for Linux isolation while using torsocks as the familiar baseline.

Timeline

• 2011: Tor Project blog announces torsocks 1.2 for Linux, BSD, and Mac OS X, with leak-prevention and portability work.
• 2014: Tor Weekly News says torsocks 2.0 is considered stable after more than a year of effort.
• 2025: Tor Project introduces oniux and compares it with torsocks' libc-overriding approach.

Related projects

• torsocks is directly related to the tor daemon, Tor's SOCKS proxy, torify-style workflows, and newer Tor Project isolation work such as oniux. It also overlaps historically with tsocks-style SOCKS wrapping.

Sources

• https://blog.torproject.org/introducing-oniux-tor-isolation-using-linux-namespaces/
• https://blog.torproject.org/tor-weekly-news-august-13th-2014/
• https://blog.torproject.org/torsocks-12-released/
• https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/torsocks#readme
• https://support.torproject.org/glossary/
• source_facts.package-manager