Setting up your own proxy server

Martin Brinkmann
Apr 7, 2006
Updated • May 3, 2013
Security
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35

Lots of people complain that web proxies are not working on their work or schools computer because they have been banned by administrators. A way around this is to setup your very own proxy server that is being hosted a) by a free web hosting service that supports either php or cgi or b) your own website that is being hosted by a web hosting company.

Both methods should work and I will walk you right through the installation process for both scripts and give you tips how to find out what is actually being blocked. Before we start you need to download a copy of phpproxy or cgiproxy depending on what you want and can use. You can also perform a search for free web hosting on Google for instance and try to find a web hoster that supports one of the two scripting languages, a good site that I found while searching for those terms is freewebspace.net

1. phpproxy

Download phpproxy and unpack it to a local directory on your hard drive. All you need to do know is to upload the script to your web space and open up the new url to check if its working alright. You may want to rename the file to something different, something that does not contain the word proxy in it to avoid filters that ban any page that has the word "proxy" in it.

You can open up the script and enter your clients IP in there to make sure that only your client will be able to connect, or you can add a .htaccess file to the directory forcing everyone who wants to start the script to enter a username and password. Again, use Google if you like to find out more information about .htaccess or use this handy password generator.

The php script has some requirements: make sure you read the readme file which is included and check to see if your hosting company meets those requirements (php version for example).

2. cgiproxy

Your hoster has to have cgi enabled in order to run this script. Many free hosters do not offer cgi or only some preinstalled scripts. Make sure it is enabled before you start the installation process. First, download the source and unpack it to a local directory.

Now, open the .cgi file and take a look at the configuration. You can edit lots of settings from within, for example you can configure the script so that it only allows text to go through the proxy but no images. Everything is explained in detail and all options are explained with comments, browse through the file, edit the options to your liking and save the new file.

After that upload the script to your cgi directory if that is required by your hoster and open the url from your browser. You are now ready to browse the web anonymously, to check if that is really the case load a website like whatismyip.com as the first site and check if the IP matches with the server the script is installed and not your computers IP. If that is the case you've done everything correctly and can surf anonymously. (there are still ways to find out your IP, just in case you are wondering)

3. What is being blocked?

a) If you can access the proxy from the client they only block domains or IP addresses.
b) If you can't access the proxy they may be banning file names that contain proxy as well, try changing the file name to see if it resolves your connection issues.

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Comments

  1. Anonymous said on March 28, 2012 at 11:55 pm
    Reply

    phpproxy.php has been uploaded but my page is coming up blank, any ideas?

  2. 72x said on December 2, 2011 at 11:00 pm
    Reply

    hello!
    i am living in iran and need to good (php) web proxy script seriously.
    please help me to find best web proxy.
    many web proxy are not load facebook.com or show it with unknow language (such as netherlandian!).
    i want web proxy that can load facebook.com and is not slow.
    thanks, very much. milad72x@gmail.com

  3. max said on December 2, 2011 at 10:53 pm
    Reply

    hello!
    i downloaded cgi proxy and uploaded it in my website. but i can not see it!
    when i view its page with my browser, it show me, blank page.
    please help me to find best web proxy (more of web proxy can not show facebook.com and some can show it but its language is not english.)
    all of web proxies are slow!
    tnx.

  4. ipadwise said on August 11, 2011 at 11:07 am
    Reply

    doesnt work very well. I tried google maps and it didnt work. I tried a page with javascript…didnt work either. Of course https didnt work but i expected that.
    When it does work its the fastest proxy i’ve ever seen though :)
    thanks..

  5. aman said on October 26, 2010 at 8:25 am
    Reply

    open the site

  6. letmein.facebook said on May 24, 2010 at 5:25 pm
    Reply

    plz let me get on facebook

    1. letmein.facebook said on May 24, 2010 at 5:26 pm
      Reply

      this is my own proxy site for facebook

  7. Mauro said on May 24, 2010 at 4:52 am
    Reply

    I cant seem to download the file and run it it says its missing a file

  8. cory said on April 10, 2010 at 6:17 pm
    Reply

    dont do it i made a proxy and got caught by technicians and they were monitoring me!! i nearly got expelled for the miss-use of computer act !!

    1. anomousone said on October 19, 2010 at 8:47 pm
      Reply

      thanks bro i wont do it now we had one that worked untill they started to monortior the computers and now they blocked the proxy which kinda sucks cause im bored nowz……….

  9. lolo said on March 6, 2010 at 5:10 pm
    Reply

    is it available to choose the (fake Geo location) where we are surfing from

  10. iresha said on December 31, 2009 at 9:14 am
    Reply

    Or you can build your own proxy server using many freely available code if you want more control

    Here is a java servlet proxy
    http://codediaries.blogspot.com/2009/12/simple-java-proxy-servlet-using.html

  11. MJ said on November 17, 2009 at 2:00 am
    Reply

    I don’t understand. Once I’ve installed the cgi proxy script, how do I access a Web site through the proxy?

    Let’s say the script can be accessed at:
    http://a.b.com/cgi-bin/nph-proxy.cgi

    Now what?

  12. Jr said on March 31, 2009 at 6:58 am
    Reply

    Hmm, not sure why but does not seem to be working. ??

  13. Julinka said on March 2, 2009 at 12:06 am
    Reply

    appreciate the info guys, thanks

  14. kyle said on February 5, 2009 at 1:51 am
    Reply

    hay people! why dont u use access throught http tunnel ? . . simply download (smartwhois) and then type any adress and it will give you the ip in which u can use!

  15. thinkweird said on December 21, 2008 at 5:52 pm
    Reply

    Good information.

    Surrogafier is another choice.

  16. same the hacker said on December 17, 2008 at 12:04 pm
    Reply

    im kind of a basic and simply hacker who like to help but im kind of to this and where upon “unpack it to a local directory on your hard drive”im kind of confused on to where it is

  17. abubakar said on December 12, 2008 at 1:50 pm
    Reply

    did any1 of u made 1?
    please send me the website because i dont have a computer at home to make my own and at college everything is blocked and they have 5 firewalls to protect everything really :S

  18. Brian said on August 25, 2008 at 8:07 pm
    Reply

    Any idea how to set up what I’m looking for??

  19. Martin said on August 25, 2008 at 7:56 pm
    Reply

    Brain since you set it up locally you have to use the local IP of your browser to connect to the proxy. Those are website scripts, not proxies that you can enter into applications.

  20. Brian said on August 25, 2008 at 7:17 pm
    Reply

    Will this process give me an IP and a port in order to enter it into my proxy switcher software? for example: 208.65.73.105:8080

    http://www.proxyswitcher.com/

    ????

  21. ben said on May 16, 2008 at 12:02 pm
    Reply

    cos schools have bocked it

  22. dreamhost said on March 28, 2008 at 1:56 am
    Reply

    *cough cough*

    skanky?

  23. ruben said on March 27, 2008 at 6:21 am
    Reply

    dreamhost is a cheap and skanky webhost who support phpproxy.

  24. AArish said on February 14, 2008 at 5:55 pm
    Reply

    I bben tryin to do this for a while, but have failed to find any decent webhosters….Could you recomment any particular one that allows cgi because most either dont, or allow only limited use.

  25. |}34|} 70 |2!53 said on December 14, 2007 at 2:55 am
    Reply

    hmmm interesting will certainly be doing a deeper look into this because at my school we have that problem but if i could set one up the way you describe i’d have no trouble gettin to yahoo er flash games :)

  26. Reply^ said on July 31, 2006 at 2:17 am
    Reply

    Download:

    http://idea.hosting.lv/a/phpproxy/phpproxy-0.6.tar.gz

    Then extract it using Winrar.

  27. Richie said on July 16, 2006 at 2:00 am
    Reply

    When you need to download the php proxy and you click on the link which one do you download?

  28. xox1 said on April 11, 2006 at 3:29 am
    Reply

    cool

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