Run Tools through a portal | Method Platform

Portals link Jackals in your Environment and route network traffic between them through Method. Use them to reach services accessible from another host while keeping your Tools on the host where you run them.

This guide walks you through using a portal as a SOCKS5 proxy. You’ll run a Tool on a source host and route its traffic through a target Jackal that can reach the destination service. This workflow lets you reach internal services, keep Tool binaries off sensitive hosts, or access external services through a host with the outbound access you need.

Before you begin

You need:

An Operation in which to run your Tool
Two hosts with Jackals installed in your Environment
A target Jackal that can reach the destination service
A Bring Your Own Tool (BYOT) built with the Courier Compiler

To create a BYOT Tool, see Create and publish a Tool.

Create a portal

1. Choose the source and target

In your Operation, open Network Map and select Create Portal. Choose a source host and its Jackal, then a target host and its Jackal.

Source: The host where your Tool runs and its traffic enters the portal
Target: The host whose Jackal connects to the destination service, also called the egress Jackal

The target host is the host forwarding traffic, not the destination service itself.

In this example, the source host runs Source Jackal, and the target host runs Target Jackal. The preview shows the path between them through Method.

Portal builder showing Source Jackal and Target Jackal, with a preview of the path through Method — Choose the source and target Jackals and review the traffic path.

2. Review and create the portal

Click Review portal. Review the source and target, then create the portal.

Advanced settings let you change the listening port and duration. The defaults are port 1080 and one hour. Wait until the portal is ready before running a Tool through it.

Network Map showing a portal connecting two hosts, with Source Jackal, Target Jackal, Active status, and port 1080 in the portal details — View the active portal between the source and target hosts in Network Map.

Run a Tool through the portal

Configure your BYOT Tool to run on the source Jackal. Select the input Objects and set any Tool parameters, then open Run via portal.

Select the portal by its listening port and egress Jackal. In this example, select Port 1080 → Egress: Target Jackal.

Tool configuration showing the Run via portal menu with Port 1080 and Target Jackal as an available option — Select the portal in the Tool configuration before running the Tool.

Click Run. The Tool executes on the source host, and its traffic reaches the destination through the target Jackal.

Verify the execution used the portal

Find the Tool execution in the Operation graph. The portal icon identifies executions that ran through a portal. Hover over the icon to see Ran via portal, the listening port, and the egress Jackal.

DNS Sweeper execution with a Ran via portal tooltip showing port 1080 and Target Jackal as the egress Jackal — Hover over the portal icon to confirm the port and egress Jackal used by an execution.

In this example, the Tool ran on the source host using Source Jackal. The portal listened on port 1080 at the source, and Target Jackal connected to the destination service.