uninitialized constant SOCKSSocket - ruby

Question

I am running ruby 1.9.3 on a linux box. I would like to use SOCKSSocket, however, I continue to run into the following error:
uninitialized constant SOCKSSocket
simple test using IRB
irb(main):001:0> require 'resolv-replace'
=> true
irb(main):002:0> SOCKSSocket
NameError: uninitialized constant SOCKSSocket
from (irb):2
from /usr/local/bin/irb:12:in `<main>'
here is the source code directly from resolv-replace.rb
class SOCKSSocket < TCPSocket
# :stopdoc:
alias original_resolv_initialize initialize
# :startdoc:
def initialize(host, serv)
original_resolv_initialize(IPSocket.getaddress(host), port)
end
end if defined? SOCKSSocket
I can't help but think that I need to install some dependency needed to enable socks or something. Anything would be helpful.

Answer 1

Ok, it seems the configure script does not have --enable-socks as part of it's list of valid options and that is the reason for the WARNING: unrecognized options ...
I did not track down how to add --enable-socks to the list of valid options, however, I did rig the script.
Edit: configure
find the section: Initialize some vars... and add enable_option_checking=no
# Initialize some variables set by options.
enable_option_checking=no
Now, run:
./configure --prefix=/usr/local --enable-socks
make
sudo make install
>ruby --version => 1.9.3p125 (2012-02-16 revision 34643) [x86_64-linux]
then, try it out in irb
irb(main):001:0> require 'socket'
=> true
irb(main):002:0> require 'resolv-replace'
=> true
irb(main):003:0> SOCKSSocket
=> SOCKSSocket
irb(main):004:0>
I haven't done anything using SOCKSSocket yet, however, at least now it looks like I have it accessible to my code. Also, I assume there is some ENV var to disable option checking or a better way around it. I just did not track that down.
Thanks for your help!!

Answer 2

SOCKSSocket appears to be an optional component of ruby. That's why
resolv-replace only monkey-patches the class if it already exists.
As an illustration, 'net/ftp' defines the following method:
def open_socket(host, port)
if defined? SOCKSSocket and ENV["SOCKS_SERVER"]
#passive = true
return SOCKSSocket.open(host, port)
else
return TCPSocket.open(host, port)
end
end
Perhaps you could do something similar (i.e. create a SOCKS socket if
you have SOCKS enabled, otherwise create a boring old TCP socket).
And if you really need the proxy behaviour, a quick google search
revealed the following gem: http://socksify.rubyforge.org/ which
might be useful.