🚀 NeXuS Medusa Proxy - QUICK START¶

Get it working in 5 minutes

Step 1: Check Prerequisites¶

cd /home/user/git/medusa-proxy

# Minimum requirements (must have):
which tor      # ✅ REQUIRED
which privoxy  # ✅ REQUIRED
which haproxy  # ✅ REQUIRED
which python3  # ✅ REQUIRED

# Optional (nice to have):
which i2pd          # I2P network
which yggdrasil     # Mesh network
which snowflake-proxy  # Help censored users

If missing any REQUIRED packages, install them first!

Step 2: Test Basic Tor Routing (Original Functionality)¶

This tests that the foundation works:

# Start the original Tor-only version
python3 start.py

You should see:

========================================
Medusa Proxy: 0.2.2

- Privoxy: 3.0.34
- HAProxy: 2.8.11
- Tor: 0.4.8.13
========================================
Starting tor (port 10000).
Starting tor (port 10001).
...

In another terminal, test it:

curl --socks5 localhost:1080 http://check.torproject.org/api/ip

Success: You get a different IP than yours (Tor exit node IP) Failure: Connection refused or timeout = something wrong with setup

Step 3: Test NeXuS Multi-Network (If Step 2 Worked)¶

Only try this if basic Tor routing works!

# Stop start.py (Ctrl+C)

# Launch full NeXuS stack
python3 nexus-start.py

You should see:

🌀 NeXuS Medusa Proxy - Multi-Network Edition
Version: 0.2.2
Philosophy: Together Everyone Achieves More
...
✅ All NeXuS networks operational!

Watch for: - ✅ Networks that start successfully - ⚠️ Warnings for missing networks (OK if optional) - 🚨 Errors (need to fix)

Step 4: Verify It's Working¶

Test Tor proxy:

curl --socks5 localhost:1080 http://check.torproject.org/api/ip

Test HTTP proxy:

curl --proxy localhost:8888 http://check.torproject.org/api/ip

Both should return different IPs (Tor exit nodes)

Step 5: Check Health Monitoring¶

After 30 seconds, you should see health checks in the output:

📊 Network Health Status:
   ✅ TOR: healthy (latency: 250ms, score: 260)
   ✅ I2P: healthy (latency: 800ms, score: 820)
   ⚠️ YGGDRASIL: not available (install yggdrasil)

Troubleshooting¶

"Connection refused" when testing¶

Problem: Services didn't start

Fix:

# Check if Tor is running
ps aux | grep tor

# Check ports
netstat -tlnp | grep -E "(1080|8888|10000)"

# Check logs
ls -la /var/log/tor/
tail /var/log/tor/*.log

"Permission denied" errors¶

Problem: Need privileges to write to /var/

Fix:

# Run with sudo
sudo python3 start.py

# Or fix permissions
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/lib/tor /var/log/tor /var/run/tor

Import errors (Python modules)¶

Problem: Missing Python dependencies

Fix:

pip3 install requests jinja2 pyyaml

What's Working?¶

After you verify it works, you have:

✅ Tor routing - Multiple Tor instances load balanced ✅ HTTP proxy - localhost:8888 via Privoxy ✅ SOCKS proxy - localhost:1080 via HAProxy ✅ Auto circuit rotation - Fresh Tor exit nodes

If multi-network works, you also have:

✅ Smart router - Automagical routing decisions ✅ Health monitoring - Continuous network checks ✅ Multi-network support - Tor, I2P, Yggdrasil, Reticulum, Snowflake ✅ Self-healing - Automatic failover when blocked

Next Steps (After It Works)¶

Read full docs: cat TEST_ROUTER.md
Configure routing: vim routing-rules.yaml
Install more networks: I2P, Yggdrasil (see nexus-install.sh)
Deploy production: Docker, systemd service
Help others: Share with NeXuS community

🌀 Together Everyone Achieves More 🌀

Get it working. Then make it better.