Shadowsocks Switch

Shadowsocks Switch simplifies enabling and disabling Shadowsocks.

Requirements

This applet acts as a wrapper around ss-local utility and therefore requires shadowsocks-libev to be present. Run apt-get install shadowsocks-libev to install it before using this applet.

Rationale

Shadowsocks is a secure proxy that is made to bypass internet censorship, so the use case is a lot like we use VPN nowadays. While other VPN protocols have Network Manager plugins that add convenient GUI to quickly enable/disable the VPN connection, Shadowsocks doesn't have one.

I'm using Shadowsocks myself, so I wanted a simple and convenient UI to quickly enable/disable the Shadowsocks connection.

How it works

Upon installation this applet adds an icon with a pop-up toggle in the system tray.

When you switch the proxy on, the applet does the following.

1. Reads and saves your current system proxy settings (proxy mode, SOCKS5 host and port).
2. Runs ss-local -c <config> in background (<config> defaults to /etc/shadowsocks-libev/config.json).
3. Sets your system proxy mode to Manual, SOCKS5 host to localhost and SOCKS5 port to the local_port value from <config>.

When you are done using Shadowsocks, you switch it off and the applet restores your previous system proxy settings and stops the proxy.

Settings

The applet uses a Shadowsocks configuration file to discover the local proxy port. The default path to the configuration file is /etc/shadowsocks-libev/config.json, but you can point the applet to any other configuration file via applet settings (click on the cog icon in the Applets window).

Credits

Shadowsocks tray icon is based on Papirus Icon Theme.