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Getting Around Napster Blocks

Historical Archive: This page is now wildly out of date, but is here for historical purposes. Originally created to help users bypass institutional Napster blocks in the early 2000s.

Updated June 12, 2001

Updated November 22, 2000

Rewritten October 23, 2000

Quick Link: If you were blocked from using Napster because of the Metallica or Dr. Dre lawsuits, find out how to get your access back.

Important Warning

If you have been blocked from using Napster by your ISP or your school, there are ways to get back to sharing files again. However, Napster (and other file-sharing applications) consume an enormous amount of bandwidth. By using such programs you may be preventing other students or users from doing important work on the network.

Most networks that permit Napster traffic find that it consumes the majority of their traffic. By getting back onto a high-bandwidth sharing network after it's been banned, you're going to upset your network administrators. It will be difficult to prevent it from being evident that you are using large amounts of bandwidth, regardless of your technique. And if you get caught, you could get in big trouble.

Quick Solutions

The fastest way to get back online is to use Napigator if you're on a Windows box and Macigator if you're on a Mac. These will bypass the need to connect to the Napster meta-server (server.napster.com) and will allow you to connect to Napster servers not owned and operated by Napster, Inc. (Such servers are almost all running the excellent OpenNap open source server software.) This should get most people back in a hurry.

You can also simply use another program to share files, like Gnutella. (Although Gnutella is not recommended if you're on a modem/dialup line!)

Advanced Solution: SOCKS Proxy Setup

The more technical solution involves setting up a SOCKS5 proxy specially configured to pass through Napster packets. You need to be a Linux administrator (or have a friend who is!) and have a box that is sitting on a high-speed network connection whose Napster access is not blocked.

Important: If your Napster access is blocked, using a proxy on the same network isn't going to help you! The proxy just routes traffic on your behalf - if you can't get through on your network, it won't be able to either.

Windows SOCKS5 Servers

Here are some SOCKS5 server options for Windows users:

  • PPPshar ($25 shareware) - includes Napster configuration info
  • Proxy+ (RECOMMENDED - free for 3 simultaneous users)
  • SOHOConnection (RECOMMENDED - free for any number of users; Java/Cross-platform)
  • JanaServer (RECOMMENDED - free!)
  • SOCKServ (RECOMMENDED - free!)
  • ComSocks (30-day shareware)
  • Gunn Proxy (30-day shareware)
  • Microsoft's Proxy Server (requires NT Server or Win2000)
  • WinGate (shareware)

How to Set Up A SOCKS Proxy With Unix

These instructions are for someone who wants to set up their Linux/Unix box as a proxy for friends at another institution who are blocked from using Napster:

1. Obtain the software

If you're running RedHat Linux, you can download the SOCKS5 server RPM from RedHat. In the directory you've saved it in, type rpm -i socks5-1.0r11-1.i386.rpm and your proxy will be installed.

If you're not running RedHat, you'll have to compile the source yourself. You can get the source from NEC's Socks page. Once you've downloaded it, type ./configure --with-threads then make and then when that's done, log in as root and type make install.

2. Configure the server

Open up your favorite editor on /etc/socks5.conf (which is probably non-existent at this point). Paste in the following: 

auth - - u
permit - u,c,p - 64.124.41.16 - 8875
permit - u,c,p - 64.124.41.17 - 8875
permit - u,c,p - 64.124.41.18 - 8875
permit - u,c,p - 64.124.41.19 - 8875
permit - u,c,p - 64.124.41.* - 7777
permit - u,c,p - 64.124.41.* - 8888
permit - - - - - 6699

This configuration will allow connections to the Napster metaserver and to each of the known Napster servers as well as allowing direct connections to another Napster client on port 6699.

3. Run the server

Now that you've got the server installed and configured SOCKS5, you need to start it up. Pick a random number between 1000 and 9000. That will be your port number.

To start your server in debug mode, type socks5 -s -d -b 1234. This will start the socks server on whatever port you've chosen. You'll see a lot of text start scrolling up the screen. Try starting up Napster on another computer and type in your server's IP address and port number as the proxy. If you can connect to the Napster network, and you see a bunch of messages scrolling on your server when you do things with Napster, then you're ready to roll.

Type killall socks5 to stop the server. (Careful! don't do this on Solaris as it will kill all active processes! Just pick out the PIDs to kill and kill them.)

Try starting the server with socks5 -d -s -t -b 1234, this should start the server on the given port in "threaded" mode. Your system or version of SOCKS5 may not support this. If it doesn't, the first message you should see should say Warning: Attempt to run server in threaded mode when threads were not a compile time option.

4. Tell your friends!

Now you can tell your friends at campuses that are blocked. Tell them your IP address and port number and they'll be sure to thank you! If they do start using your machine in earnest, you might want to limit the number of people that you tell about your proxy.

One option to restrict the number of people who use your proxy is to shut out unauthorized users. Let's say you wanted to let your friends at University FOO, which uses the 171.23. class B subnet, access the Napster network. You'd replace all of the second dashes (after u,c,p) with 171.23. (except for the very last line, the one with the string of dashes) -- anyone not coming from that subnet would be denied access to your proxy.

Historical Context

This document was created during the early 2000s when many universities and ISPs began blocking access to Napster due to bandwidth concerns and legal pressure from the recording industry. The technical solutions described here used SOCKS proxy servers to route Napster traffic around institutional firewalls.

The proxy setup involved configuring servers to allow connections to specific Napster server IP addresses and ports, effectively tunneling the peer-to-peer traffic through unrestricted networks. This was a common workaround used by college students whose campus networks had blocked direct access to file-sharing services.

Legal Disclaimer: This historical information is preserved for educational and technical archival purposes only. The original Napster service was shut down in 2001, and this information is no longer applicable to any current services. Bypassing network restrictions may violate institutional policies or terms of service.