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March 09, 2006

Install a Proxy Server - Privoxy

Occasionally, some websites are unreachable due to weird network problems. Setting up a proxy server on our own server would be a very convenient solution, it's also safer than using a proxy which we know nothing about.

I tried Privoxy. It's very easy to use and worked well.

Installation
# cd /usr/ports/www/privoxy
# make install clean
# rehash

The configuration file is /usr/local/etc/privoxy/config, there is one line which must be changed:
listen-address 127.0.0.1:8118
The IP should be changed to your server's IP address. Also, it's better to use a non-default port number for security reasons.

Start Privoxy
# privoxy /usr/local/etc/privoxy/config

Now you can configure your browser or other Internet software with the listen-address configured above.


Category : Misc

Posted by FreeBSD Newbie at March 9, 2006 03:48 PM

Comments

try squid proxy.
you can run it transparently, meaning the clients don't have to be reconfigured. the server's firewall software can do a redirect.

Here's how to do in OpenBSD.
http://www.benzedrine.cx/transquid.html

Posted by joe at March 9, 2006 11:07 PM

Thanks for the info, joe. I only made a search under ports with "proxy" and Privoxy came up as the first result. :-)

Posted by FreeBSD Newbie at March 10, 2006 09:45 AM

I can attest to how good Squid is. I run 2 Squid proxies, configured for automatic fail-over, for a large userbase of developers.

If you configure the `cache_peer' directive properly you can have your machines sharing their cache too - so the failover is even more seamless.

Hendrik and and the guys over at squid-users@squid-cache.org are nice and helpful too. It's worth sitting on the mailing list as some quite interesting topics pop up every now-and-again.

Posted by Sam at March 10, 2006 01:05 PM

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