Tixati proxy settings: SOCKS5 for peers, and why DHT stays outside

Tixati proxy settings can send tracker connections, peer connections or both through a SOCKS5 proxy. What they cannot do, in Tixati's own words, is proxy DHT: "It is not possible to use a proxy for DHT UDP packets." So with a proxy set and DHT on, Tixati still talks to the DHT network from your own address. If a separate address is the point, switch DHT off.

That one sentence from Tixati's help page shapes everything else here. The rest is how to set the proxy, what we could not confirm, and how to read your usage afterwards.

Do you need a proxy for this?

Possibly not. Tixati suits large, legitimate swarms, such as distribution images, open datasets and Creative Commons collections, and none of those need a proxy to download. If a project also publishes an HTTP mirror, fetching one file from the mirror costs you nothing on a metered proxy.

A proxy is worth it when you want this one program to leave from a different address than the rest of your machine. It is not a way to share files you have no right to share, which is not allowed on ProxyPanda; see the acceptable use policy, which also makes staying within the law your responsibility. Lawful swarms are welcome: peer-to-peer traffic is fine on our residential proxies and on dedicated ISP or datacenter IPs with no traffic cap. If your concern is copyright enforcement, the clients that discuss it recommend a VPN, and proxy vs VPN explains why.

What Tixati's help page says

The page is titled "Settings - Network - Proxy", and its summary is short enough to quote in full:

A SOCKS4/4a/5/HTTP proxy server can be used for tracker, peer, or both types of connections. It is not possible to use a proxy for DHT UDP packets, and using a proxy for peers may prevent incoming connections from being received.

Taking it a clause at a time:

• Four proxy types. SOCKS4, SOCKS4a, SOCKS5 and HTTP. Use SOCKS5 with ProxyPanda: it carries peer connections, and residential ports answer it, while ISP and datacenter proxies switch to it in the dashboard.
• Trackers, peers or both. Choose both. Proxying trackers alone hides your address from the tracker operator and from nobody else, since every peer still connects to your own IP. It is cheap in traffic for exactly that reason.
• DHT is outside. Leave it on and your real address takes part in the DHT network while everything else goes through the proxy.
• Incoming connections may stop. Behind a proxy, other peers usually cannot reach you. You can still download from, and upload to, the peers you connect out to.

The limits on our side

Tixati's rules are not the only ones. These come from the proxy:

• Our SOCKS5 is TCP only, as far as you should assume. We have not verified a UDP relay on our gateways, so UDP trackers and any UDP peer traffic should not be expected to work through us. HTTP vs SOCKS5 says the same for every tool.
• An HTTP proxy carries no UDP at all, and for peers it needs tunnels to arbitrary ports, which we have not confirmed on every port.
• Nothing is encrypted by the proxy. It relays your connections; it does not hide their contents from the network in between.
• Traffic goes both ways. Downloading pieces and uploading them while you seed both cross the proxy. How each direction counts on your plan is written under metering.

Setting it up

1. Open Tixati's settings and go to the proxy section under the network settings, the screen the help page above describes.
2. Choose SOCKS5 and enter the host and port from your service page. On ISP and datacenter proxies, switch the proxy to SOCKS5 first and copy the port again.
3. Apply the proxy to both tracker and peer connections.
4. Add a login if your version asks for one. Tixati's help does not say whether it supports a SOCKS5 username and password, and we could not confirm it, so the dependable route is to put your own address on the IP allowlist, where no login is needed.
5. Switch DHT off, as below, then restart the torrent you are testing.

We have kept field names general on purpose. Tixati's help page confirms what the proxy can do but not every label on the screen, and we would rather not give you labels from memory.

Switching DHT off, and what you give up

With DHT off, Tixati finds peers through trackers and through the peers it is already connected to. For a torrent with working trackers, which includes most distribution and open-data torrents, that is usually enough. A magnet link that lists no tracker depends on DHT to find anyone, so with DHT off it may find no peers at all. In that case fetch the .torrent file from the project's own site, which normally lists its trackers.

Tixati 3.43, released in June 2026, brought major DHT changes, and the current release is 3.44. The help page still says DHT cannot be proxied, so treat it as outside the proxy until Tixati says otherwise.

What we could not confirm

• Whether Tixati supports a SOCKS5 username and password.
• What happens to UDP trackers when a proxy is set: proxied, dropped or sent directly.
• How Tixati's own UDP-based peer connections behave behind a proxy.

If any of these matter for your job, the meter check below will tell you more than any page can, ours included.

Check the meter against Tixati's own counters

Tixati is known for detailed bandwidth views, which makes this easier than in most clients.

1. Check the proxy works from the same machine: curl -s -x socks5h://USERNAME:PASSWORD@HOST:PORT https://api.ipify.org should print an address that is not yours.
2. Note your service's traffic figure in the dashboard. How to see how much traffic is left shows where.
3. Download a small, lawful torrent and note Tixati's totals for it, received and sent.
4. After a few minutes, since the dashboard updates regularly rather than live, compare.

Roughly equal means peers are going through the proxy. A dashboard that barely moved means they are not; check that the proxy applies to peers as well as trackers. If the dashboard is a little higher, that is protocol traffic and discarded data, which count too. How to check your proxy provider's meter has the longer method.

Quick answers

Can Tixati use a SOCKS5 proxy? Yes, for tracker connections, peer connections or both.

Does Tixati proxy DHT? No. Its help page says it is not possible, so switch DHT off if you need a separate address.

Is there a Tixati for Mac? The site lists Windows, Linux and Android, not macOS.

Will port forwarding help while the proxy is on? No. Proxied peers usually cannot reach you, whatever your router does.

Next step

If the trade-off of losing DHT does not suit your torrents, which torrent clients work with SOCKS5 shows the clients that can at least attempt to proxy it. Questions about a specific setup are welcome in Discord, before you spend anything.