shadowsocks-manager

A web-based Shadowsocks management tool.

Features:

• Central user management
• Heartbeat on Shadowsocks ports(users)
• Shadowsocks multi-user API
• Shadowsocks node cluster
• Statistic for network traffic usage
• Scheduled jobs
• name.com API
• Auto-creating DNS records
• Production deployment ready
• How's the Shadowsocks supported:
  • libev edition:
    • Full functional.
    • No builtin service manager, you need to install it and start the service by yourself.
  • python edition:
    • Lacks the collection of traffic statistics.
    • Lacks the ability to test user port creation status.
    • Pre-installed, and have a builtin service manager.

Code in Python, base on Django, Django REST framework, Celery, and SQLite.

The development status can be found at: project home.

Node List:

Node's Shadowsocks Manager:

1. Requirements

• Python 2.7, Python 3.x
• Django 1.11.x, Django 3.x
• macOS Big Sur
• AWS Amazon Linux AMI
• AWS Amazon Linux 2 AMI
• Shadowsocks-libev 3.2.0 for Linux (multi-user API is required)

2. Install

This project is a part of an entire VPN solution, which includes the Shadowsocks server and Shadowsocks manager. The Shadowsocks server serves the traffic, the Shadowsocks manager serves the users and the traffic statistics. The solution is designed to be deployed in the AWS cloud. If you are looking for such a solution, you can refer to the repo aws-cfn-vpn. With aws-cfn-vpn, you can deploy the entire solution with a few commands.

2.1. Dependencies

Assume you have installed the Docker on your host.

2.2. Manual installation

# create a docker network
docker network create ssm-network

# run memcached, used by django cache
docker run -d -p 11211:11211 --network ssm-network --name ssm-memcached memcached

# run rabbitmq, used by celery
docker run -d -p 5672:5672 --network ssm-network --name ssm-rabbitmq rabbitmq

# create a directory to store the data, it will be mounted to the container
mkdir -p ~/ssm-volume

# run the shadowsocks-manager
docker run -d -p 80:80 --network ssm-network -v ~/ssm-volume:/var/local/ssm --name ssm alexzhangs/shadowsocks-manager \
           -e SSM_SECRET_KEY=yourkey -e SSM_DEBUG=False -e SSM_MEMCACHED_HOST=ssm-memcached -e SSM_RABBITMQ_HOST=ssm-rabbitmq \
           -u admin -p yourpassword -M admin@yourdomain.com

2.3. Install with script

git clone https://github.com/alexzhangs/shadowsocks-manager
bash shadowsocks-manager/install.sh -u admin -p yourpassword -M admin@yourdomain.com

2.4. Verify the installation

If all go smoothly, the shadowsocks-manager services should have been all started. Open the web admin console in a web browser, and log on with the admin user.

Use:

http://<your_server_ip>/admin
or 
http://localhost/admin

If goes well, then congratulations! The installation has succeeded.

3. Using shadowsocks-manager

1. Shadowsocks server

   First, you need to have a Shadowsocks server with the multi-user API enabled.

   About how to install and configure Shadowsocks server in AWS, refer to the repo aws-ec2-shadowsocks-libev

   After the server is installed and started, there should be a running process named ss-manager. Write down the IP address and the port that the ss-manager is listening on, and also the public IP address of the server, the encryption method that Shadowsocks is using, they are going to be used in the next step.

2. Add Shadowsocks server to shadowsocks-manager

   Add the Shadowsocks server as a Node of shadowsocks-manager from web admin console: Home › Shadowsocks › Shadowsocks Nodes.

3. Create users(ports) and assign Shadowsocks Node

   Create users from web admin console: Home › Shadowsocks › Shadowsocks Accounts and assign the existing nodes to them.

   After a few seconds, the created user ports should be available to your Shadowsocks client.

4. The builtin local service manager for Shadowsocks python edition

   There's a builtin local service manager available for the Shadowsocks python edition.

   The python edition is pre-installed with shadowsocks-manager. With the service manager, you can start&stop the local service daemon on-the-fly. Check it out from the web admin console Home › Shadowsocks › Shadowsocks Nodes, under the SHADOWSOCKS MANAGERS tab.

   However the traffice statistics and user port creation status features are not available for the python edition.

4. Sendmail (Optional)

sendmail is used to send account notification Email, it should be configured on the same server with shadowsocks-manager.

About how to configure sendmail client to use AWS SES as SMTP server on AWS EC2 instance, refer to repo aws-ec2-ses.

On macOS, refer to repo macos-aws-ses.

NOTE: This dependency needs the manual setup anyway, it is not handled by any installation script.

5. Differences from the alternation: shadowsocks/shadowsocks-manager

This repo Do's:

• Serve as a nonprofit business model.
• Have central user management for multi nodes.
• Collect traffic statistic that can be viewed by account, node, and period.
• Show the existence and accessibility of ports in the admin.
• Handle the DNS records if using Name.com as nameserver.

This repo Don'ts:

• Handle self-serviced user registration.
• Handle bill or payment.
• Need to run an additional agent on each Shadowsocks server.

6. Some differences between the Shadowsocks Python edition (2.8.2) and libev edition

Version status for the Shadowsocks Python edition:

• pypi: 2.8.2
• github: 3.0.0

Although the Shadowsocks Python edition supports the multi-user API, but it doesn't fit this project, here's why:

• The python edition code and doc seem to be out of maintenance due to some reason. If you really need this you probably need to fork it and make your own.
• They are having different service process names and CLI interfaces which introduces the complexity of installation.
• The Python edition lacks the list commands. A pull request was opened years ago but never merged.
• The Python edition's stat command has a very different way to use, I didn't figure the usage syntax out by looking into the code.
• The Python edition's ping command returns a simple string pong rather than a list of ports.
• The Python edition's ping command has to be sent as the syntax: ping:{} in order to work if tested with nc. It caused by the tailing newline: ping\n.

So either you get some change on your own or stick with the libev edition.

Update for Shadowsocks Python edition on 2024-04

Both the pypi version (2.8.2) and the github master branch (3.0.0) failed to start ssserver due to the upstream and dependency changes.

Since the Python edition is pre-installed in this project, mainly for running test cases, I have to make a patch to make it work.

The fix based on github master branch 3.0.0, and would be minimal, just to make the ssserver start without any error, no more features added. After the fix, the pre-installed Python edition will be changed from the pypi version to my fork.

7. Known Issues

1. DNS records matching for Node may not be accurate on macOS. For unknown reason sometimes DNS query returns only one IP address while multiple IP addresses were configured for the domain.

2. The Shadowsocks Python edition's ssserver won't start on macOS. The error message is like:

   $ ssserver -k passw0rd
   WARNING: /Users/***/.pyenv/versions/3.12.0/envs/ssm-3.12/bin/python3.12 is loading libcrypto in an unsafe way
   Abort trap: 6
   

   Solution: Link the homebrew openssl library to the system library.

   sudo ln -s /opt/homebrew/opt/openssl/lib/libcrypto.dylib /usr/local/lib/
   sudo ln -s /opt/homebrew/opt/openssl/lib/libssl.dylib /usr/local/lib/
   

3. Install the project with pip under Python 2.7 get error:

   pip install -e .
   

   Error message:

   ...
   Collecting pyyaml
   Downloading PyYAML-5.4.1.tar.gz (175 kB)
       |████████████████████████████████| 175 kB 392 kB/s 
   Installing build dependencies ... done
   Getting requirements to build wheel ... error
   ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1:
   ...
       raise AttributeError, attr
   AttributeError: cython_sources
   ...
   

   Solution:

   pip install --no-build-isolation -e .
   

8. Development

1. Install the dependencies

   # run memcached, used by django cache
   docker run -d -p 11211:11211 --name ssm-memcached memcached
   
   # run rabbitmq, used by celery
   docker run -d -p 5672:5672 --name ssm-rabbitmq rabbitmq
   

2. Link the project code in your workspace to the Python environment

   cd shadowsocks-manager
   pip install -e .
   

3. Configure the shadowsocks-manager

   ssm-setup -c -m -l -u admin -p yourpassword
   

4. Run the development server

   ssm-dev-start
   

5. Stop the development server

   ssm-dev-stop
   

6. Test the Django code

   ssm-test -t
   

7. Test the Django code with coverage

   pip install coverage
   ssm-test -c
   

8. Upload the coverage report to codecov

   Make sure the CODECOV_TOKEN is exported in the environment before uploading.

   pip install codecov-cli
   ssm-test -u
   

9. Test the Github workflows locally

   brew install act
   act -j test
   

10. Build the pypi package

    pip install build
    
    # build source distribution, equivalent to `python setup.py sdist`
    python -m build -s
    
    # build binary distribution for py3, equivalent to `python setup.py bdist_wheel`
    python3 -m build -w
    
    # build binary distribution for py2
    python2 -m build -w
    

11. Upload the pypi package

    Set the ~/.pypirc file with the API token from the TestPyPI and PyPI before uploading.

    pip install twine
    
    # upload the package to the test pypi
    python -m twine upload --repository testpypi dist/*
    
    # upload the package to the live pypi
    python -m twine upload dist/*
    

12. Test the pypi package

    # install the package from the test pypi
    # --no-deps is used to skip installing dependencies for the test pypi
    pip install -i https://test.pypi.org/simple/ --no-deps shadowsocks-manager
    
    # install the package from the live pypi
    # --no-binary is used to force building the package from the source
    # --use-pep517 is used together to make sure the PEP 517 is tested
    pip install --no-binary --use-pep517 shadowsocks-manager
    

13. Build the docker image

    docker build -t alexzhangs/shadowsocks-manager .
    

9. Troubleshooting

1. Check the logs

   # supervisor
   cat /var/log/supervisor/supervisord.log
   
   # uWSGI
   cat /var/log/ssm-uwsgi.log
   
   # Celery
   cat /var/log/ssm-cerlery*
   

2. Check the services

   # nginx
   service nginx {status|start|stop|reload}
   
   # supervisor
   service supervisord {status|start|stop|restart}
   supervisorctl reload
   supervisorctl start all
   
   # uWSGI
   supervisorctl start ssm-uwsgi
   
   # Celery
   supervisorctl start ssm-celery-worker
   supervisorctl start ssm-celery-beat
   

3. Check the listening ports (Linux)

   # TCP
   netstat -tan
   
   # UDP
   netstat -uan