Otdfbt

I'm trying to implement something similar to the service provided by https://www.smartdnsproxy.com, where clients only need to change their DNS settings to connect to a HTTP/S or SOCKS5 proxy. I think I understand the individual components, but I'm having trouble putting it all together.

To achieve what I want, I need to provide the following services to clients:

• DNS server, I'm using dnsmasq
  


• SOCKS proxy, I'm using Dante
  

Then, once a client has set the DNS to my server and a request is sent, the goal is for the following to happen:

1. User performs DNS request asking where is example.com
   


2. My DNS server responds "It is <proxy-ip-address>"


3. User then sends an HTTP/S request to the proxy's IP address, e.g.
   
   

   GET /about.html HTTP/1.1
   Host: example.com
   

   
   


4. Proxy server handles the incoming request (likely in port 80 or 443) and returns result to the client

I was able to setup both services, and they appear to work well independently. I have configured dnsmasq to resolve all domains with the proxy's IP address, and I can setup a client just fine. I have configured dante to listen to port 1080, and I can verify that a client can use the proxy, tested with the handy socksify tool.

Then, to forward the incoming requests from the HTTP/S ports to the proxy itself, I'm using the following IPTABLES rules:

#!/bin/bash
# Create new chain
iptables -t nat -N SOCKSPROXY

# Ignore LANs and some other reserved addresses.
iptables -t nat -A SOCKSPROXY -d 0.0.0.0/8 -j RETURN
iptables -t nat -A SOCKSPROXY -d 10.0.0.0/8 -j RETURN
iptables -t nat -A SOCKSPROXY -d 127.0.0.0/8 -j RETURN
iptables -t nat -A SOCKSPROXY -d 169.254.0.0/16 -j RETURN
iptables -t nat -A SOCKSPROXY -d 172.16.0.0/12 -j RETURN
iptables -t nat -A SOCKSPROXY -d 192.168.0.0/16 -j RETURN
iptables -t nat -A SOCKSPROXY -d 224.0.0.0/4 -j RETURN
iptables -t nat -A SOCKSPROXY -d 240.0.0.0/4 -j RETURN

# Anything else should be redirected to port 1080
iptables -t nat -A SOCKSPROXY -p tcp -j REDIRECT --to-ports 1080

# Any tcp connection made by our user should be redirected
iptables -t nat -A OUTPUT -p tcp -m owner --uid-owner $USER -j SOCKSPROXY

# Accept all HTTP and HTTPS connections
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m multiport --dports 80,443 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp -m multiport --dports 80,443 -j ACCEPT

But I'm seeing connection refused errors. Is iptables the right approach to forward the incoming connections to the proxy server? If so, what am I missing?