Connection through reverse-proxy

flaxo · **Author**

Hey all.

Today I was thinking for a possible way to reach my real HLDS's IP address through some kind of proxy running on another VPS, in order to hide my real target IP address.

I successfully installed nmap/netcat on a VPS running Ubuntu Server 14.04. Then I ported all incoming TCP/UDP traffic on port 27015 redirecting on port 27015 to the VPS the HLDS is running on.

All the traffic is being received/sent fine, BUT, when I'm trying to connect via the proxy IP (which auto-redirects to the real IP) from my client, the "Connecting..." window stops at 3 first orange bars and then "kicks" me with either message "Host_Error: UserMsg: Not Present on Client 19" OR "Bad command character in client comman".

My questions are 3:
Can it be fixed in any way?
Does this happen because Valve wants to prevent redirect scamming?
If I finally find a way to make it, will my target IP be transparent through the tunnelling? I want to hide it completely somehow, but don't ask why

Thanks in advance.

flaxo · 08-30-2014 , 15:24 Re: Connection through reverse-proxy

What a noob. I forgot to set netcat getting responses from the target too. Okay, questions 1 & 2 answered.
What I noticed for question 3 is:
If I add my server to favorites with the proxy IP, it responses with the proxy IP, which is what I want it to do.
But, when I am connected to the server and I type "status", the server responses with the real IP, not the proxy's one.
Can it be spoofed or is it limited to the HLDS engine?

fysiks · 08-30-2014 , 15:27 Re: Connection through reverse-proxy

I bet spoofing it would be against Valve's "Policy of Truth".

vampire2k · *Last edited by vampire2k; 09-04-2014 at 07:24.*

It's not so much spoofing as it is NAT over the internet.
You could try setting up a vpn and setting the -ip parameter to a private IP. Steam auth and VAC should still work but I figure your server won't show up in the public server browser, but since you're trying to hide it anyways...

edit: Also note that you will increase latency for everyone by proxying/NAT/VPN, even in the best case (same network) you're going to loose a few milliseconds to buffers and delays, not much but it could mean all the difference for some of your players.