How to set up a private proxy server on my VPS

A proxy server shares one internet connection with all the computers on your local network or it is a computer that offers a network service allowing clients to make indirect network connections to other network services. So basically a proxy (proxy server) is one that acts as mediator between the client (the computer of a user) and server. When clients request data from an Internet resource, traffic goes from your web browser/application first through the proxy before it reaches the requested sources and back through the proxy which then transmits the data to you. A proxy server sits between a client application, such as a Web browser, and a real server. It intercepts all requests to the real server to see if it can fulfill the requests itself. If not, it forwards the request to the real server.

How Proxy Servers Work:

1.When a computer on the intranet makes a request out to the Internet-such as to retrieve a Web page from a Web server-the internal computer actually contacts the proxy server, which in turn contacts the Internet server. The Internet server sends the Web page to the proxy server, which then forwards the page to the computer on the intranet.

2. Proxy servers log all traffic between the Internet and the intranet. They can log every IP address, date and time of access, URL, number of bytes downloaded, and so on. This information can be used in analyzing any attacks launched against the network. It can also help intranet administrators build better access and services for employees.

3. Some proxy servers work with special proxy clients. A more popular approach is to use off-the-shelf clients such as Netscape with proxy servers. When such an off-the-shelf package is used, it must be specially configured to work with proxy servers from a configuration menu. Then the intranet employee uses the client software as usual. The client software knows to go out to a proxy server to get the data, instead of to the Internet.

4. Proxy servers can do more than relay requests back and forth between an intranet and the Internet. They can also implement security schemes. For example, an FTP proxy server could be set up to allow files to be sent from the Internet to a computer on the intranet, but to block files from being sent from the corporate network out to the Internet-or vice versa. In this way, intranet administrators can block anyone outside the corporation from downloading vital corporate data. Or they can stop intranet users from downloading files which may contain viruses.

5. These can also be used to speed up the performance of some Internet services by caching data-keeping copies of the requested data. For example, a Web proxy server could cache many Web pages, so that whenever someone from the intranet wanted to get one of those Web pages, they could get it directly from the proxy server across high-speed intranet lines, without having to go out across the Internet and get the page at a lower speed from Internet lines.

A Virtual Private Server can work well to set up your own internet browsing proxy. It costs as little as $8 a month, which is roughly the same a private proxy or VPN provider, would charge you. But with you being in full control over the logs and resources on the server which can be used for other things besides hiding your IP when browsing the internet. It can be depicted by the diagram along with the instructions given below:

1. You will need to install a proxy server on your machine, this example uses micro proxy,  a small Unix based HTTP/HTTPS proxy that runs from inetd.
2. Install xinetd on your server. Set micro proxy to run via xinetd (or inetd if you use that instead).
3. Force xinetd to start the service for you by adding the following snippet of code in your etc/services file.
4. Make sure the ports you want to use are open on the server, there are various methods to achieve this:
5. Once you have installed micro proxy, configured xinetd and edited etc/services you should be done on the server side, now it is time to configure your internet browser.