Telemt - MTProxy on Rust + Tokio

Telemt is a fast, secure, and feature-rich server written in Rust: it fully implements the official Telegram proxy algo and adds many production-ready improvements such as connection pooling, replay protection, detailed statistics, masking from "prying" eyes

Emergency

RU

Многие из вас столкнулись с проблемой загрузки медиа из каналов с >100k subs...

Мы уже знаем о проблеме: она связана с dc=203 - Telegram CDN и сейчас есть подтверждённое исправление...

🤐 ДОСТУПНО ТОЛЬКО В РЕЛИЗЕ 2.0.0.1 и последующих

Сейчас оно принимо через добавление в конфиг:

[dc_overrides]
"203" = "91.105.192.100:443"

Мы работаем над поиском всех адресов для каждого "нестандартного" DC...

Фикс вне конфига будет в релизе 2.0.0.2

Если у вас есть компетенции в асинхронных сетевых приложениях, анализе трафика, reverse engineering, network forensics - мы открыты к мыслям, предложениям, pull requests

EN

Many of you have encountered issues loading media from channels with over 100k subscribers…

We’re already aware of the problem: it’s related to dc=203 – Telegram CDN – and we now have a confirmed fix.

🤐 AVAILABLE ONLY IN RELEASE 2.0.0.1 and later

Currently, you can apply it by adding the following to your config:

[dc_overrides]
"203" = "91.105.192.100:443"

We’re working on identifying all addresses for every “non‑standard” DC…

The fix will be included in release 2.0.0.2, no manual config needed.

If you have expertise in asynchronous network applications, traffic analysis, reverse engineering, or network forensics – we’re open to ideas, suggestions, and pull requests.

Features

💥 The configuration structure has changed since version 1.1.0.0. change it in your environment!

⚓ Our implementation of TLS-fronting is one of the most deeply debugged, focused, advanced and almost "behaviorally consistent to real": we are confident we have it right - see evidence on our validation and traces

GOTO

• Features
• Quick Start Guide
• How to use?
  • Systemd Method
• Configuration
  • Minimal Configuration
  • Advanced
    • Adtag
    • Listening and Announce IPs
    • Upstream Manager
      • IP
      • SOCKS
• FAQ
  • Recognizability for DPI + crawler
  • Telegram Calls
  • DPI
  • Whitelist on Network Level
  • Too many open files
• Build
• Docker
• Why Rust?

Features

• Full support for all official MTProto proxy modes:
  • Classic
  • Secure - with dd prefix
  • Fake TLS - with ee prefix + SNI fronting
• Replay attack protection
• Optional traffic masking: forward unrecognized connections to a real web server, e.g. GitHub 🤪
• Configurable keepalives + timeouts + IPv6 and "Fast Mode"
• Graceful shutdown on Ctrl+C
• Extensive logging via trace and debug with RUST_LOG method

Quick Start Guide

This software is designed for Debian-based OS: in addition to Debian, these are Ubuntu, Mint, Kali, MX and many other Linux

1. Download release

wget https://github.com/telemt/telemt/releases/latest/download/telemt

2. Move to Bin Folder

mv telemt /bin

4. Make Executable

chmod +x /bin/telemt

5. Go to How to use? section for for further steps

How to use?

Telemt via Systemd

This instruction "assume" that you:

• logged in as root or executed su - / sudo su
• you already have an assembled and executable telemt in /bin folder as a result of the Quick Start Guide or Build

0. Check port and generate secrets

The port you have selected for use should be MISSING from the list, when:

netstat -lnp

Generate 16 bytes/32 characters HEX with OpenSSL or another way:

openssl rand -hex 16

OR

xxd -l 16 -p /dev/urandom

OR

python3 -c 'import os; print(os.urandom(16).hex())'

1. Place your config to /etc/telemt.toml

Open nano

nano /etc/telemt.toml

paste your config from Configuration section

then Ctrl+X -> Y -> Enter to save

2. Create service on /etc/systemd/system/telemt.service

Open nano

nano /etc/systemd/system/telemt.service

paste this Systemd Module

[Unit]
Description=Telemt
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/bin
ExecStart=/bin/telemt /etc/telemt.toml
Restart=on-failure
LimitNOFILE=65536

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

then Ctrl+X -> Y -> Enter to save

3. In Shell type systemctl start telemt - it must start with zero exit-code

4. In Shell type systemctl status telemt - there you can reach info about current MTProxy status

5. In Shell type systemctl enable telemt - then telemt will start with system startup, after the network is up

Configuration

Minimal Configuration for First Start

# === UI ===
# Users to show in the startup log (tg:// links)
show_link = ["hello"]

# === General Settings ===
[general]
prefer_ipv6 = false
fast_mode = true
use_middle_proxy = false
# ad_tag = "..."

[general.modes]
classic = false
secure = false
tls = true

# === Server Binding ===
[server]
port = 443
listen_addr_ipv4 = "0.0.0.0"
listen_addr_ipv6 = "::"
# metrics_port = 9090
# metrics_whitelist = ["127.0.0.1", "::1"]

# Listen on multiple interfaces/IPs (overrides listen_addr_*)
[[server.listeners]]
ip = "0.0.0.0"
# announce_ip = "1.2.3.4" # Optional: Public IP for tg:// links

[[server.listeners]]
ip = "::"

# === Timeouts (in seconds) ===
[timeouts]
client_handshake = 15
tg_connect = 10
client_keepalive = 60
client_ack = 300

# === Anti-Censorship & Masking ===
[censorship]
tls_domain = "petrovich.ru"
mask = true
mask_port = 443
# mask_host = "petrovich.ru" # Defaults to tls_domain if not set
# mask_unix_sock = "/var/run/nginx.sock" # Unix socket (mutually exclusive with mask_host)
fake_cert_len = 2048

# === Access Control & Users ===
# username "hello" is used for example
[access]
replay_check_len = 65536
ignore_time_skew = false

[access.users]
# format: "username" = "32_hex_chars_secret"
hello = "00000000000000000000000000000000"

# [access.user_max_tcp_conns]
# hello = 50

# [access.user_data_quota]
# hello = 1073741824 # 1 GB

# === Upstreams & Routing ===
# By default, direct connection is used, but you can add SOCKS proxy

# Direct - Default
[[upstreams]]
type = "direct"
enabled = true
weight = 10

# SOCKS5
# [[upstreams]]
# type = "socks5"
# address = "127.0.0.1:9050"
# enabled = false
# weight = 1

Advanced

Adtag

To use channel advertising and usage statistics from Telegram, get Adtag from @mtproxybot, add this parameter to section [General]

ad_tag = "00000000000000000000000000000000" # Replace zeros to your adtag from @mtproxybot

Listening and Announce IPs

To specify listening address and/or address in links, add to section [[server.listeners]] of config.toml:

[[server.listeners]]
ip = "0.0.0.0"          # 0.0.0.0 = all IPs; your IP = specific listening
announce_ip = "1.2.3.4" # IP in links; comment with # if not used

Upstream Manager

To specify upstream, add to section [[upstreams]] of config.toml:

Bind on IP

[[upstreams]]
type = "direct"
weight = 1
enabled = true
interface = "192.168.1.100" # Change to your outgoing IP

SOCKS4/5 as Upstream

• Without Auth:

[[upstreams]]
type = "socks5"            # Specify SOCKS4 or SOCKS5
address = "1.2.3.4:1234"   # SOCKS-server Address
weight = 1                 # Set Weight for Scenarios
enabled = true

• With Auth:

[[upstreams]]
type = "socks5"            # Specify SOCKS4 or SOCKS5
address = "1.2.3.4:1234"   # SOCKS-server Address
username = "user"          # Username for Auth on SOCKS-server
password = "pass"          # Password for Auth on SOCKS-server
weight = 1                 # Set Weight for Scenarios
enabled = true

FAQ

Recognizability for DPI and crawler

Since version 1.1.0.0, we have debugged masking perfectly: for all clients without "presenting" a key, we transparently direct traffic to the target host!

• We consider this a breakthrough aspect, which has no stable analogues today

• Based on this: if telemt configured correctly, TLS mode is completely identical to real-life handshake + communication with a specified host

• Here is our evidence:

  • 212.220.88.77 - "dummy" host, running telemt
  • petrovich.ru - tls + masking host, in HEX: 706574726f766963682e7275
  • No MITM + No Fake Certificates/Crypto = pure transparent TCP Splice to "best" upstream: MTProxy or tls/mask-host:
    • DPI see legitimate HTTPS to tls_host, including valid chain-of-trust and entropy
    • Crawlers completely satisfied receiving responses from mask_host

  Client WITH secret-key accesses the MTProxy resource:

  

  Client WITHOUT secret-key gets transparent access to the specified resource:

  • with trusted certificate
  • with original handshake
  • with full request-response way
  • with low-latency overhead

root@debian:~/telemt# curl -v -I --resolve petrovich.ru:443:212.220.88.77 https://petrovich.ru/
* Added petrovich.ru:443:212.220.88.77 to DNS cache
* Hostname petrovich.ru was found in DNS cache
*   Trying 212.220.88.77:443...
* Connected to petrovich.ru (212.220.88.77) port 443 (#0)
* ALPN: offers h2,http/1.1
* TLSv1.3 (OUT), TLS handshake, Client hello (1):
*  CAfile: /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
*  CApath: /etc/ssl/certs
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Server hello (2):
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Encrypted Extensions (8):
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Certificate (11):
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, CERT verify (15):
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Finished (20):
* TLSv1.3 (OUT), TLS change cipher, Change cipher spec (1):
* TLSv1.3 (OUT), TLS handshake, Finished (20):
* SSL connection using TLSv1.3 / TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
* ALPN: server did not agree on a protocol. Uses default.
* Server certificate:
*  subject: C=RU; ST=Saint Petersburg; L=Saint Petersburg; O=STD Petrovich; CN=*.petrovich.ru
*  start date: Jan 28 11:21:01 2025 GMT
*  expire date: Mar  1 11:21:00 2026 GMT
*  subjectAltName: host "petrovich.ru" matched cert's "petrovich.ru"
*  issuer: C=BE; O=GlobalSign nv-sa; CN=GlobalSign RSA OV SSL CA 2018
*  SSL certificate verify ok.
* using HTTP/1.x
> HEAD / HTTP/1.1
> Host: petrovich.ru
> User-Agent: curl/7.88.1
> Accept: */*
> 
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Newsession Ticket (4):
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Newsession Ticket (4):
* old SSL session ID is stale, removing
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Server: Variti/0.9.3a
Server: Variti/0.9.3a
< Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:0000 GMT
Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:0000 GMT
< Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
< Content-Type: text/html
Content-Type: text/html
< Cache-Control: no-store
Cache-Control: no-store
< Expires: Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:0000 GMT
Expires: Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:0000 GMT
< Pragma: no-cache
Pragma: no-cache
< Set-Cookie: ipp_uid=XXXXX/XXXXX/XXXXX==; Expires=Tue, 31 Dec 2040 23:59:59 GMT; Domain=.petrovich.ru; Path=/
Set-Cookie: ipp_uid=XXXXX/XXXXX/XXXXX==; Expires=Tue, 31 Dec 2040 23:59:59 GMT; Domain=.petrovich.ru; Path=/
< Content-Type: text/html
Content-Type: text/html
< Content-Length: 31253
Content-Length: 31253
< Connection: keep-alive
Connection: keep-alive
< Keep-Alive: timeout=60
Keep-Alive: timeout=60

< 
* Connection #0 to host petrovich.ru left intact

• We challenged ourselves, we kept trying and we didn't only beat the air: now, we have something to show you
  • Do not just take our word for it? - This is great and we respect that: you can build your own telemt or download a build and check it right now

Telegram Calls via MTProxy

• Telegram architecture does NOT allow calls via MTProxy, but only via SOCKS5, which cannot be obfuscated

How does DPI see MTProxy TLS?

• DPI sees MTProxy in Fake TLS (ee) mode as TLS 1.3
• the SNI you specify sends both the client and the server;
• ALPN is similar to HTTP 1.1/2;
• high entropy, which is normal for AES-encrypted traffic;

Whitelist on IP

• MTProxy cannot work when there is:
  • no IP connectivity to the target host: Russian Whitelist on Mobile Networks - "Белый список"
  • OR all TCP traffic is blocked
  • OR high entropy/encrypted traffic is blocked: content filters at universities and critical infrastructure
  • OR all TLS traffic is blocked
  • OR specified port is blocked: use 443 to make it "like real"
  • OR provided SNI is blocked: use "officially approved"/innocuous name
• like most protocols on the Internet;
• these situations are observed:
  • in China behind the Great Firewall
  • in Russia on mobile networks, less in wired networks
  • in Iran during "activity"

Too many open files

• On a fresh Linux install the default open file limit is low; under load telemt may fail with Accept error: Too many open files
• Systemd: add LimitNOFILE=65536 to the [Service] section (already included in the example above)
• Docker: add --ulimit nofile=65536:65536 to your docker run command, or in docker-compose.yml:

ulimits:
  nofile:
    soft: 65536
    hard: 65536

• System-wide (optional): add to /etc/security/limits.conf:

*       soft    nofile  1048576
*       hard    nofile  1048576
root    soft    nofile  1048576
root    hard    nofile  1048576

Build

# Cloning repo
git clone https://github.com/telemt/telemt 
# Changing Directory to telemt
cd telemt
# Starting Release Build
cargo build --release
# Move to /bin
mv ./target/release/telemt /bin
# Make executable
chmod +x /bin/telemt
# Lets go!
telemt config.toml

Docker

Quick start (Docker Compose)

1. Edit config.toml in repo root (at least: port, users secrets, tls_domain)
2. Start container:

docker compose up -d --build

3. Check logs:

docker compose logs -f telemt

4. Stop:

docker compose down

Notes

• docker-compose.yml maps ./config.toml to /app/config.toml (read-only)
• By default it publishes 443:443 and runs with dropped capabilities (only NET_BIND_SERVICE is added)
• If you really need host networking (usually only for some IPv6 setups) uncomment network_mode: host

Run without Compose

docker build -t telemt:local .
docker run --name telemt --restart unless-stopped \
  -p 443:443 \
  -e RUST_LOG=info \
  -v "$PWD/config.toml:/app/config.toml:ro" \
  --read-only \
  --cap-drop ALL --cap-add NET_BIND_SERVICE \
  --ulimit nofile=65536:65536 \
  telemt:local

Why Rust?

• Long-running reliability and idempotent behavior
• Rust's deterministic resource management - RAII
• No garbage collector
• Memory safety and reduced attack surface
• Tokio's asynchronous architecture

Issues

• ✅ SOCKS5 as Upstream -> added Upstream Management
• ✅ iOS - Media Upload Hanging-in-Loop

Roadmap

• Public IP in links
• Config Reload-on-fly
• Bind to device or IP for outbound/inbound connections
• Adtag Support per SNI / Secret
• Fail-fast on start + Fail-soft on runtime (only WARN/ERROR)
• Zero-copy, minimal allocs on hotpath
• DC Healthchecks + global fallback
• No global mutable state
• Client isolation + Fair Bandwidth
• Backpressure-aware IO
• "Secret Policy" - SNI / Secret Routing :D
• Multi-upstream Balancer and Failover
• Strict FSM per handshake
• Session-based Antireplay with Sliding window, non-broking reconnects
• Web Control: statistic, state of health, latency, client experience...