FlareSolverr is a proxy server to bypass Cloudflare protection.
FlareSolverr starts a proxy server and it waits for user requests in an idle state using few resources. When some request arrives, it uses puppeteer with the stealth plugin to create a headless browser (Firefox). It opens the URL with user parameters and waits until the Cloudflare challenge is solved (or timeout). The HTML code and the cookies are sent back to the user, and those cookies can be used to bypass Cloudflare using other HTTP clients.
NOTE: Web browsers consume a lot of memory. If you are running FlareSolverr on a machine with few RAM, do not make many requests at once. With each request a new browser is launched.
It is also possible to use a permanent session. However, if you use sessions, you should make sure to close them as soon as you are done using them.
It is recommended to install using a Docker container because the project depends on an external browser that is already included within the image.
Docker images are available in:
- GitHub Registry => https://github.com/orgs/FlareSolverr/packages/container/package/flaresolverr
- DockerHub => https://hub.docker.com/r/flaresolverr/flaresolverr
Supported architectures are:
Architecture | Tag |
---|---|
x86-64 | linux/amd64 |
ARM64 | linux/arm64 |
ARM32 | linux/arm/v7 |
We provide a docker-compose.yml
configuration file. Clone this repository and execute docker-compose up -d
to start
the container.
If you prefer the docker cli
execute the following command.
docker run -d \
--name=flaresolverr \
-p 8191:8191 \
-e LOG_LEVEL=info \
--restart unless-stopped \
ghcr.io/flaresolverr/flaresolverr:latest
This is the recommended way for Windows users.
- Download the FlareSolverr zip from the release's assets. It is available for Windows and Linux.
- Extract the zip file. FlareSolverr executable and firefox folder must be in the same directory.
- Execute FlareSolverr binary. In the environment variables section you can find how to change the configuration.
This is the recommended way for macOS users and for developers.
- Install NodeJS 16.
- Clone this repository and open a shell in that path.
- Run
export PUPPETEER_PRODUCT=firefox
(Linux/macOS) orset PUPPETEER_PRODUCT=firefox
(Windows). - Run
npm install
command to install FlareSolverr dependencies. - Run
npm start
command to compile TypeScript code and start FlareSolverr.
If you get errors related to firefox not installed try running node node_modules/puppeteer/install.js
to install Firefox.
We provide an example Systemd unit file flaresolverr.service
as reference. You have to modify the file to suit your needs: paths, user and environment variables.
Example request:
curl -L -X POST 'http://localhost:8191/v1' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
"cmd": "request.get",
"url":"http://www.google.com/",
"maxTimeout": 60000
}'
This will launch a new browser instance which will retain cookies until you destroy it with sessions.destroy
.
This comes in handy, so you don't have to keep solving challenges over and over and you won't need to keep sending
cookies for the browser to use.
This also speeds up the requests since it won't have to launch a new browser instance for every request.
Parameter | Notes |
---|---|
session | Optional. The session ID that you want to be assigned to the instance. If isn't set a random UUID will be assigned. |
proxy | Optional, default disabled. Eg: "proxy": {"url": "http://127.0.0.1:8888"} . You must include the proxy schema in the URL: http:// , socks4:// or socks5:// . Authorization (username/password) is not supported. |
Returns a list of all the active sessions. More for debugging if you are curious to see how many sessions are running. You should always make sure to properly close each session when you are done using them as too many may slow your computer down.
Example response:
{
"sessions": [
"session_id_1",
"session_id_2",
"session_id_3..."
]
}
This will properly shutdown a browser instance and remove all files associated with it to free up resources for a new session. When you no longer need to use a session you should make sure to close it.
Parameter | Notes |
---|---|
session | The session ID that you want to be destroyed. |
Parameter | Notes |
---|---|
url | Mandatory |
session | Optional. Will send the request from and existing browser instance. If one is not sent it will create a temporary instance that will be destroyed immediately after the request is completed. |
maxTimeout | Optional, default value 60000. Max timeout to solve the challenge in milliseconds. |
cookies | Optional. Will be used by the headless browser. Follow this format. |
returnOnlyCookies | Optional, default false. Only returns the cookies. Response data, headers and other parts of the response are removed. |
proxy | Optional, default disabled. Eg: "proxy": {"url": "http://127.0.0.1:8888"} . You must include the proxy schema in the URL: http:// , socks4:// or socks5:// . Authorization (username/password) is not supported. (When the session parameter is set, the proxy is ignored; a session specific proxy can be set in sessions.create .) |
Example response from running the curl
above:
{
"solution": {
"url": "https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl",
"status": 200,
"headers": {
"status": "200",
"date": "Thu, 16 Jul 2020 04:15:49 GMT",
"expires": "-1",
"cache-control": "private, max-age=0",
"content-type": "text/html; charset=UTF-8",
"strict-transport-security": "max-age=31536000",
"p3p": "CP=\"This is not a P3P policy! See g.co/p3phelp for more info.\"",
"content-encoding": "br",
"server": "gws",
"content-length": "61587",
"x-xss-protection": "0",
"x-frame-options": "SAMEORIGIN",
"set-cookie": "1P_JAR=2020-07-16-04; expires=Sat..."
},
"response":"<!DOCTYPE html>...",
"cookies": [
{
"name": "NID",
"value": "204=QE3Ocq15XalczqjuDy52HeseG3zAZuJzID3R57...",
"domain": ".google.com",
"path": "/",
"expires": 1610684149.307722,
"size": 178,
"httpOnly": true,
"secure": true,
"session": false,
"sameSite": "None"
},
{
"name": "1P_JAR",
"value": "2020-07-16-04",
"domain": ".google.com",
"path": "/",
"expires": 1597464949.307626,
"size": 19,
"httpOnly": false,
"secure": true,
"session": false,
"sameSite": "None"
}
],
"userAgent": "Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/5..."
},
"status": "ok",
"message": "",
"startTimestamp": 1594872947467,
"endTimestamp": 1594872949617,
"version": "1.0.0"
}
This is the same as request.get
but it takes one more param:
Parameter | Notes |
---|---|
postData | Must be a string with application/x-www-form-urlencoded . Eg: a=b&c=d |
Name | Default | Notes |
---|---|---|
LOG_LEVEL | info | Verbosity of the logging. Use LOG_LEVEL=debug for more information. |
LOG_HTML | false | Only for debugging. If true all HTML that passes through the proxy will be logged to the console in debug level. |
CAPTCHA_SOLVER | none | Captcha solving method. It is used when a captcha is encountered. See the Captcha Solvers section. |
TZ | UTC | Timezone used in the logs and the web browser. Example: TZ=Europe/London . |
HEADLESS | true | Only for debugging. To run the web browser in headless mode or visible. |
BROWSER_TIMEOUT | 40000 | If you are experiencing errors/timeouts because your system is slow, you can try to increase this value. Remember to increase the maxTimeout parameter too. |
TEST_URL | https://www.google.com | FlareSolverr makes a request on start to make sure the web browser is working. You can change that URL if it is blocked in your country. |
PORT | 8191 | Listening port. You don't need to change this if you are running on Docker. |
HOST | 0.0.0.0 | Listening interface. You don't need to change this if you are running on Docker. |
Environment variables are set differently depending on the operating system. Some examples:
- Docker: Take a look at the Docker section in this document. Environment variables can be set in the
docker-compose.yml
file or in the Docker CLI command. - Linux: Run
export LOG_LEVEL=debug
and then start FlareSolverr in the same shell. - Windows: Open
cmd.exe
, runset LOG_LEVEL=debug
and then start FlareSolverr in the same shell.
Sometimes CloudFlare not only gives mathematical computations and browser tests, sometimes they also require the user to
solve a captcha.
If this is the case, FlareSolverr will return the error Captcha detected but no automatic solver is configured.
FlareSolverr can be customized to solve the captchas automatically by setting the environment variable CAPTCHA_SOLVER
to the file name of one of the adapters inside the /captcha directory.
- C# implementation => https://github.com/FlareSolverr/FlareSolverrSharp