To make Python's requests library use the IPv4 address of a target server via a SOCKS proxy created with ssh -D, you need to:

1. Set up the SOCKS proxy using ssh -D.
2. Configure requests to route traffic through that SOCKS proxy.
3. Ensure the SOCKS proxy resolves hostnames to IPv4 (not IPv6) if needed.

🔧 Step 1: Create the SOCKS Proxy with ssh -D

On your local machine, run:

ssh -D 1080 user@target-server

• -D 1080: Creates a SOCKS proxy on port 1080 on your local machine.
• user@target-server: The SSH user and target server (Debian 13) you want to route traffic through.

⚠️ This SOCKS proxy runs on your local machine, not the target server. The traffic will be tunneled through the SSH connection to the target server.

🐍 Step 2: Use the SOCKS Proxy in Python requests

The requests library does not natively support SOCKS. You need to use the requests[socks] package.

Install requests[socks]

pip install requests[socks]

Example Python Code

import requests

proxies = {
    'http': 'socks5h://127.0.0.1:1080',
    'https': 'socks5h://127.0.0.1:1080'
}

response = requests.get('https://example.com', proxies=proxies)
print(response.text)

• socks5h://: The h means the proxy will resolve hostnames (DNS) on the proxy side (i.e., on your local machine, but through the SSH tunnel).
• 127.0.0.1:1080: The local SOCKS proxy created by ssh -D.

🌐 Step 3: Force IPv4 on the Target Server (Optional)

If the target server has both IPv4 and IPv6, and you want to ensure the target server uses IPv4 for outgoing connections:

On the target server, run:

sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=1
sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6=1

This disables IPv6 system-wide on the target server, forcing all outgoing connections to use IPv4.

⚠️ This affects the entire system. Use only if you control the target server and want to enforce IPv4.

🔍 Verify It Works

1. Check your public IP from the target server's perspective:
   python

   Copy

   import requests
   
   proxies = {
       'http': 'socks5h://127.0.0.1:1080',
       'https': 'socks5h://127.0.0.1:1080'
   }
   
   response = requests.get('https://api.ipify.org?format=json', proxies=proxies)
   print(response.json())

   • This should return the public IPv4 address of the target server.

✅ Summary