TeleGO

High-performance Telegram MTProxy in Go with TLS fronting

Features • Installation • Quick Start • Configuration • Docker • Performance

English | Русский

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Telegram blocked in your country? TeleGO's TLS fronting makes your proxy indistinguishable from regular HTTPS traffic to censors. Get started in 2 minutes

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Features

Networking

• Event-driven I/O — Built on gnet with epoll/kqueue for maximum efficiency
• Zero-copy relaying — Direct buffer manipulation without intermediate copies
• Buffer pooling — Striped sync.Pool design eliminates allocations in hot paths
• Optimized TCP — TCP_NODELAY, TCP_QUICKACK, 64KB buffers, SO_REUSEPORT

Security

• TLS Fronting — Fetches real certificates from mask host for perfect camouflage
• Probe Resistance — Forwards unrecognized clients to mask host (indistinguishable from HTTPS)
• Replay Protection — 64-shard LRU cache with TTL expiration (hashicorp/golang-lru)
• Key Zeroization — Sensitive data (session IDs, random bytes) zeroed on connection close
• Desync Detection — Detects crypto state divergence via abnormal frame sizes
• Dual Protocol Support — FakeTLS (ee) and raw Obfuscated2 (dd) with auto-detection on single port

Operations

• Multi-user Support — Named secrets with per-user tracking and logging
• Connection Tracking — Unique connection IDs for easy log correlation
• Connection Limits — Per-IP connection limits and per-user IP limits with smart blocking (only blocks IPs with active connections when evicted, allowing legitimate reconnections)
• Prometheus Metrics — Per-user connection counts, traffic, and blocked IP statistics
• DC Probing — Automatic RTT-based DC address sorting at startup
• Config Hot-Reload — SIGHUP and file watching for runtime config changes
• Graceful Shutdown — Clean connection draining on SIGTERM/SIGINT
• Structured Logging — JSON and text output with configurable levels

Deployment

• Unix Socket Support — Bind to Unix sockets for reverse proxy setups
• PROXY Protocol — Accept v1/v2 headers from HAProxy/nginx to preserve client IPs
• SOCKS5 Upstream — Route DC connections through SOCKS5 proxy (Hysteria2, VLESS, etc.)

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Installation

From Source

git clone https://github.com/Scratch-net/telego.git
cd telego
make build

Pre-built Binaries

Download from Releases.

Go Install

go install github.com/scratch-net/telego/cmd/telego@latest

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Quick Start

1. Generate a secret:

telego generate www.google.com
# secret=0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef  <- put this in config
# ee_link=tg://proxy?server=YOUR_IP&port=443&secret=ee...  <- FakeTLS (recommended)
# dd_link=tg://proxy?server=YOUR_IP&port=443&secret=dd...  <- raw Obfuscated2

2. Create config.toml:

[general]
bind-to = "0.0.0.0:443"

[secrets]
alice = "0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef"

[tls-fronting]
mask-host = "www.google.com"

3. Run:

telego run -c config.toml -l

The -l flag prints Telegram proxy links with auto-detected public IP.

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Protocol Modes

TeleGO supports two MTProxy protocol variants on a single port with auto-detection:

Mode	Secret Prefix	Description	Best For
FakeTLS (ee)	ee...	TLS-wrapped Obfuscated2	Maximum stealth, censorship bypass
Raw (dd)	dd...	Plain Obfuscated2	Compatibility, lower overhead

FakeTLS (ee) wraps traffic in TLS 1.3 records, making it indistinguishable from HTTPS. The secret includes the mask hostname for SNI validation. Unrecognized connections are forwarded to the mask host for probe resistance.

Raw (dd) sends Obfuscated2 directly without TLS wrapping. Lower overhead but easier to fingerprint. Useful for compatibility with older clients or when TLS fronting isn't needed.

Both modes use the same 16-byte secret key. The ee or dd prefix in the client link determines which mode the client uses. TeleGO auto-detects the protocol from the first bytes of each connection.

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Configuration

Config Reference

[general]
# Network binding (TCP or Unix socket)
bind-to = "0.0.0.0:443"
# bind-to = "/run/telego/telego.sock"  # Unix socket

# Log level: trace, debug, info, warn, error
log-level = "info"

# Accept incoming PROXY protocol headers (from HAProxy/nginx)
# proxy-protocol = false

# Maximum connections per IP+user (0 = unlimited)
# Protects against abuse when many users share one IP (NAT, VPN)
# max-connections-per-ip = 100

# Maximum unique IPs per user (0 = unlimited)
# Prevents secret sharing - limits how many devices/locations can use one secret
# max-ips-per-user = 3

# How long blocked IPs stay blocked (for max-ips-per-user)
# ip-block-timeout = "5m"

# Named secrets (hex format, 32 chars = 16 bytes)
# Generate with: telego generate <hostname>
[secrets]
user1 = "0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef"
user2 = "fedcba9876543210fedcba9876543210"

# TLS fronting configuration
[tls-fronting]
mask-host = "www.google.com"  # Host to mimic (SNI validation, proxy links)
# mask-port = 443             # Port for mask-host (default: 443)
# cert-host = "127.0.0.1"     # Where to fetch TLS cert (default: mask-host)
# cert-port = 8443            # Cert fetch port (default: mask-port)
# splice-host = "127.0.0.1"   # Forward unrecognized clients here (default: mask-host)
# splice-port = 8080          # Splice port (default: mask-port)
# splice-proxy-protocol = 1   # PROXY protocol to splice: 0=off, 1=v1(text), 2=v2(binary)

# Performance tuning (all optional)
[performance]
prefer-ip = "prefer-ipv4"    # prefer-ipv4, prefer-ipv6, only-ipv4, only-ipv6
idle-timeout = "5m"          # Connection idle timeout (hot-reloadable)
num-event-loops = 0          # 0 = auto (all CPU cores)

# Upstream (DC connection) settings
[upstream]
# socks5 = "127.0.0.1:1080"  # Route DC traffic through SOCKS5 proxy

# Prometheus metrics (optional)
[metrics]
# bind-to = "127.0.0.1:9090"  # Metrics endpoint (empty = disabled)
# path = "/metrics"           # Metrics path

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CLI Reference

telego run       Start the proxy server
  -c, --config   Path to config file (required)
  -b, --bind     Override bind address
  -l, --link     Print Telegram proxy links on startup (both ee and dd)

telego generate <hostname>   Generate a new secret for hostname
                             Outputs both ee (FakeTLS) and dd (raw) links

telego version   Show version information

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Docker

Docker Hub

docker run -d \
  --name telego \
  -p 443:443 \
  -v /path/to/config.toml:/config.toml \
  scratchnet/telego:latest

Docker Compose

version: '3.8'
services:
  telego:
    image: scratchnet/telego:latest
    container_name: telego
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - ./config.toml:/config.toml:ro
    cap_add:
      - NET_BIND_SERVICE

Build Locally

docker build -f dist/Dockerfile.build -t telego .
docker run -d -p 443:443 -v ./config.toml:/config.toml telego

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Behind a Reverse Proxy

TeleGO can run behind HAProxy or nginx using Unix sockets and PROXY protocol:

config.toml:

[general]
bind-to = "/run/telego/telego.sock"
proxy-protocol = true
max-connections-per-ip = 100  # DoS protection
max-ips-per-user = 3          # Sharing protection

[secrets]
user1 = "..."

[tls-fronting]
mask-host = "www.google.com"

HAProxy example:

backend telego
    mode tcp
    server telego /run/telego/telego.sock send-proxy-v2

nginx example:

upstream telego {
    server unix:/run/telego/telego.sock;
}

server {
    listen 443;
    proxy_pass telego;
    proxy_protocol on;
}

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Systemd

Install as a systemd service:

sudo make install CONFIG=/etc/telego/config.toml
sudo systemctl enable telego
sudo systemctl start telego

Service file is installed to /etc/systemd/system/telego.service.

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Config Hot-Reload

TeleGO supports runtime configuration reloading without restart:

Via SIGHUP:

kill -HUP $(pidof telego)

Automatic: Config file changes are detected via fsnotify (Linux inotify).

Hot-reloadable fields:

• log-level — Applied immediately
• idle-timeout — Applies to new connections

Require restart:

• bind-to, secrets, tls-fronting.*, proxy-protocol, max-connections-per-ip, max-ips-per-user

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Performance

Benchmarks

Tested on Intel i9-12900K, Linux 6.6:

Benchmark	Throughput	Allocations
Raw TCP loopback	6.0 GB/s	0 B/op
AES-CTR encrypt	10.5 GB/s	0 B/op
AES-CTR encrypt+decrypt	5.3 GB/s	0 B/op
Full pipeline (TLS+O2)	4.6 GB/s	5 B/op
TLS frame parse (pooled)	35.5 GB/s	0 B/op
Replay cache lookup	40 ns	32 B/op

Optimizations

• Striped locking — 64-shard replay cache, 64-shard user IP limiter
• Buffer pools — 64KB DC buffers, 16KB TLS record buffers
• Zero-copy crypto — XORKeyStream directly into output buffers
• Batched writes — Multiple TLS records coalesced into single syscall
• Lock-free state — Atomic state machine for connection handling
• Backpressure — Flow control with hysteresis (soft/hard limits) prevents OOM on slow clients without oscillation

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Logging

Connections are tracked with unique IDs for easy correlation:

INF gnet proxy started on 0.0.0.0:443
INF Connection limiter enabled: max 100 connections per IP
INF User IP limiter enabled: max 3 IPs per user, block timeout 5m0s
INF [#1:alice] 203.0.113.5:54321 -> DC 2
INF [#2:bob] 198.51.100.10:12345 -> DC 4
INF [#1:alice] DC 2 closed (45.2s) (active: 1)
WRN [#2:bob] DC 4 closed (30s): i/o timeout (active: 0)

• #N — Connection ID (incremental, unique per session)
• #N:user — Connection ID with matched secret name
• Duration shown on close
• Errors on authenticated connections logged as WARN

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Metrics

TeleGO exposes Prometheus metrics when configured:

[metrics]
bind-to = "127.0.0.1:9090"

Available Metrics

Metric	Type	Description
telego_connections_active	Gauge	Active connections per user
telego_ips_active	Gauge	IPs with active connections per user
telego_ips_tracked	Gauge	Unique IPs in LRU cache per user
telego_ips_blocked	Gauge	Currently blocked IPs per user
telego_blocked_total	Counter	Total IP block events per user
telego_traffic_in_bytes_total	Counter	Bytes received from clients
telego_traffic_out_bytes_total	Counter	Bytes sent to clients

All metrics include a user label for per-user breakdown.

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Architecture

┌─────────────┐     ┌──────────────────────────────────────┐     ┌──────────┐
│   Client    │────▶│              TeleGO                  │────▶│ Telegram │
│ (Telegram)  │◀────│      Auto-detect ee/dd protocol      │◀────│    DC    │
└─────────────┘     │                                      │     └──────────┘
                    │  ee: FakeTLS ─▶ Obfuscated2 ─▶ Relay │
                    │  dd: Obfuscated2 ─▶ Relay            │
                    └──────────────────────────────────────┘
                                     │
                                     ▼ (unrecognized ee)
                               ┌──────────┐
                               │   Mask   │
                               │   Host   │
                               └──────────┘

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Contributing

PRs are welcome! Please ensure:

1. Tests pass: go test -race ./...
2. Benchmarks don't regress: go test -bench=. ./...

Note: Middle-End (ME) protocol and ad-tags will not be supported.

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License

Apache License 2.0

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Acknowledgments

This project was inspired by and builds upon ideas from:

• mtg by Sergey Arkhipov — The original Go MTProxy implementation
• mtprotoproxy by Alexander Borzunov — Python reference implementation
• telemt — High-performance Rust MTProxy implementation

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