Internet Proxy
 

What do you think about running an internet proxy on a home web server? Is this a definite no? I was planning on registering the domain slowprox.com or something like that and just using it for myself and some friends. If it does get out ss it possible to limit the number of active users?

It could work, as long as it didn't get picked up from the free proxy websites. I never advertised my proxy and in 3 days it was picked up. Now Its doing over 200k pages a day.

wow. thats impressive, but I'll definitely keep my eyes up for that. After I submitted that, I was on godaddy thinking of all the cool domain names I could register (oxyproxy and other rhymes), but now I think I'll go back to something like slowproxy.com. I just want to make a few bucks from a couple hundred visitors, but I wouldn't mind shutting it down if it goes over the top. Sounds like it would be worth the fun.

A word of warning, no one will give me advertising on my proxy website. I tryed 3 different places. And all of them said no. Just keep that in mind before you start your proxy.

ok thanks. what about yahoo or google contextual ads? Have you tried that?

Google said no and I am still waiting on yahoo. If you want to buy it I will sell it to you for what I have into it. The stats have been doubling daily more than likely it will kill your bandwidth.

What is the point of running a proxy? Advantages?

money from advertising

Just like chiefsmurph said "money from advertising". Check out this thread at sitepoint. http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=356457 this guy is making $616 per month. :)

thank you proxy. Its been working out great: Traffic is not getting out of control, but its still getting about 600 visitors a day. You wouldn't beleive the difference the site is making on my advertising. I went from about 2-3 dollars to 4-10 a day.

Is there a free script some were that you use for the proxy or how would you go about starting one?

There's PHPProxy and CGIProxy, both are fairly easy to setup.

ok I think I will try the php then because I have never used cgi scripts and from what I have seen it looks like you have to do a lot of setting up to get them to work.

I'm using phproxy and I couldn't beleive how easy it was. I just downloaded the files and put them on my server. With a couple minor changes to the layout, it was working just how I have it now. I haven't tried cgi proxy so I can't compare the two though.

I have been trying for over an hour now and I can not get phpproxy to work. I am getting nothing. Can I get someones help?

I need more information in order to help you. More than likely you need php-devel. What do you mean by your not getting nothing?

I think he's having the same problem I was having with using PHP5 which isn't supported. If you either check your error logs or enable 'display_errors' in your php.ini file, you will be able to see the error the script is getting. I found the info about PHP5 in their forums.

Did I even get it from the right site? The site I got it from had no forums or instructions or anything. I know I have PHP installed because I am using smf witch is a php forum. Is php-deval something different?

If your using SMF, then you don't need php-devel. If your using Fedora Core 4 I am pretty sure it has PHP 5, and the PHP proxy website is unsupported if you have PHP 5. You are going to have to use a cgi proxy website instead.

OK I have never used cgi before so I need alot of help.

I have no idea on how your server is setup. So I don't even know where to begin. But for sure your going to have to run the program out of your cgi folder. And your going to have to enable cgi permissions in Apache.

Ok I will look more into getting cgi setup on my server when I get home on saturday and I will ask if I have an questions.

OK I have tried and I can not find any kind of anything to install cgi and set it up. I have never used cgi before but I think you need like a cgi-bin and then all cgi files have to be in there.

You are right you have to have a cgi-bin to execute the cgi files. You also have to set up cgi in apache. More than likely your cgi-bin is located at /var/www/cgi-bin. I know you don't like control panels but if you had webmin and virtualmin you could set this up with the snap of your fingers. But I am sure I can help you get it set up with out the control panel. :)

I just enabled it on my server yesterday, wasn't as bad as I thought...

Make sure you have in your httpd config;
LoadModule cgi_module modules/mod_cgi.so

Uncomment;
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi

Down in your <Directory /home/*/public_html> section add below to the Options line;
ExecCGI

That should be it, you will be allowed to execute Perl scripts from anywhere.

Ok I think I set it up right but when I go to this address I get a page saying page can not be displayed. Do I have to change anything in the file?

http://mitchellmeffert.com/cgi-bin/nph-proxy.cgi


Do I need anything else installed like mod_perl?

To get an idea of the problem, login to your server using ssh, and run the command :-

tail -f /var/log/httpd/error_log

If your server is setup with the defaults, that should be the location of your error log file. Then go to the URL you have problems with, and see what gets printed on the screen. It will usually give you an idea of what the problem is. Depending on how you have cgi setup, you may need to enable mod_perl, but be warned, it is not possible to run mod_perl and mod_php in the same instance of apache. If you need to run both, then the normal practice is to add a line :-

#! /bin/perl

to the start of your script, and to make the file executable by world. This can be done with a :-

chmod 0755 file.cgi

from the ssh prompt, assumiong you are already in the directory containing the file. Having done that, the file should run like any other program on a unix system.