ICMP Tunneling - ICMPTX
An Ubuntu console, with an ICMPTX client running.
ICMPTX?
ICMPTX is a mostly linux software project to permit tunneling IP packets across ICMP pings. Why do this? To bypass restrictions. Ever go to a seemingly free hotspot, only to open your browser and discover the hotspot owner’s site, rather than your target? You can get around this if, like almost all hotspots, pings are permitted. Your computer, with the help of the software, will redirect all your internet traffic through the ping port in the form of a ping, and the server at the other end will return everything you requested. The biggest problem in my case with this was my OS and a server. One of my nicer, shared hosting plans had some decent control, but of course, I couldn’t superuser it. That doesn’t work. So, I had to go to a home-hosted server concept. I would simply install Ubuntu or something onto an old box, get ICMPTX going, maybe some router tweaks, but it would be simple. Wrong! Ubuntu on its own took me well over an hour to get going. Then, I still haven’t been able to properly configure the tunnel. I think there may be some issues further down the pipe, along with my own already. So, there I was, spending hours on hours trying to get a really cool thing working when I probably should’ve been studying for a test. Oh well! Trial and error.