NekoBox / sing-box: For Desktop and Advanced Users

NekoBox (and the sing-box core underneath it) is a client for those to whom "one button" isn't enough and who need full control over routing and transports. Not for the mass client, but for advanced users and for the desktop, where you want to do everything by hand. Below is installation, import, and setup. Substitute the subscription link into the builder above.

This material is about engineering your own infrastructure and is educational in nature. You are responsible for complying with the laws of your own jurisdiction.

Who it's for and why

Happ, Hiddify, and Streisand hide complexity — and that's the right call for the mass client. But sometimes complexity is needed: fine-grained routing by your own rules, transport debugging, several subscriptions with different logic, working on the desktop with full TUN control. For this there's NekoBox (Windows/Android, a fork on the sing-box core) and sing-box directly. You give them to an advanced client or use them yourself for diagnostics.

A warning up front: this is a client where it's easy to shoot yourself in the foot. Don't give it to the mass user — it'll flood support.

Installation

• Windows — NekoBox (NekoRay) from the project's GitHub releases.
• Android — NekoBox for Android, from F-Droid or the APK from the releases.
• Linux / macOS — sing-box directly (CLI) or GUI wrappers; on mac it's simpler to take Hiddify unless you specifically need sing-box.

The sing-box core is one and the same under all wrappers — the setup logic transfers between them.

Subscription import

1. Copy the subscription link from the bot (of the form https://sub.your-domain.com/xxxxxxxx).
2. In NekoBox: Program → Add profile from clipboard, or Group settings → New group → type "Subscription" and paste the link.
3. Refresh the group (Update subscription) — the list of servers gets pulled in.
4. Right-click a server in the list → Set as current, then enable the tunnel.

sing-box understands the sing-box format from the Remnawave subscription — if you serve this format in the template, the routing rules arrive together with the servers.

TUN mode (all traffic through the VPN)

By default NekoBox brings up a local proxy — only apps that know about the proxy go through it. To wrap all system traffic, enable TUN:

Settings → General → enable "TUN Mode." On Windows this may require running as administrator and installing a driver — NekoBox will offer it itself. Once enabled, all of the system's traffic goes through the selected server.

Without TUN the client will complain "it works in the browser but not in the app" — that's exactly about proxy mode not wrapping everything.

Manual routing

Here's NekoBox's main strength — your own rules. Settings → Routing lets you set rule sets in sing-box terms:

direct  →  geosite:category-ru , geoip:ru , domain:sberbank.ru , domain:ozon.ru …
block   →  geosite:category-ads-all      (optional — cut ads)
proxy   →  by default (everything else)

Rule order is top to bottom, first match wins: RF domains and IPs in direct first, everything else in proxy at the end. This is exactly the same logic as in the client routing rules, only set by hand. For an advanced user you can assemble your own set once and distribute it as a file.

A subtlety: geosite/geoip rules run on the client against its databases (geosite.dat, geoip.dat). Keep them fresh — NekoBox can update geo databases in the settings, and lists of RF domains change.

DNS

In the DNS settings set Google (https://8.8.8.8/dns-query) or Quad9 (https://9.9.9.9/dns-query). Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 is slow in RF. For split routing it's convenient to set different DNS for direct and proxy — but that's already fine-tuning, not everyone needs it.

Bottom line

NekoBox / sing-box is a tool for those who want control and aren't afraid of settings: TUN for all traffic, manual routing, your own geo databases. For the mass client it's overkill — there it's Happ or Hiddify. And how subscription import itself works in any client (link, QR, updating) — we cover separately in the article "Subscription Import: Link, QR, Updating."