telemt

Telemt is a Telegram proxy server written in Rust. Telegram is a messaging app that some internet providers or governments block in certain regions. A proxy server sits between your device and Telegram's network, relaying your traffic so you can still connect. Telemt implements the protocol Telegram uses for its own official proxies, called MTProxy, and adds several production-focused improvements on top.

The project is built with Rust and an asynchronous networking library called Tokio. Rust is a programming language known for predictable memory usage, no garbage collection pauses, and a safety model that reduces common server crashes or vulnerabilities. The async design allows the server to handle many simultaneous connections without creating a separate thread for each one, keeping resource usage low on the host machine.

Telemt supports three connection modes from the official MTProto spec. The classic mode is the baseline. The secure mode adds a specific prefix to distinguish connections. The fake TLS mode makes proxy traffic look like normal HTTPS browsing to deep-packet inspection tools, using a technique called SNI fronting. The README describes the project's TLS-fronting implementation as one of the most carefully tested in this category, with documented validation traces against real traffic patterns.

Additional features include replay attack protection, which prevents captured connection data from being reused to impersonate a client. There is also optional forwarding of unrecognized connections to a real web server, so the proxy can appear to be a legitimate site. The server supports configurable keepalive and timeout settings, IPv6, and graceful shutdown. Logging detail can be tuned via an environment variable.

Installation takes a single shell command. Building from source requires the Rust toolchain and produces one binary. Configuration is handled through a TOML file passed as an argument at startup. The project is open source and free to use. The maintainer accepts cryptocurrency donations for infrastructure and continued development.