hello, i'm wondering if this is possible or safe?
The thing is, at my school they have a server that blocks things like websearches that include certain keywords (if researching a game for history, for example, "games" would be forbidden) and even important multimedia. I'd like to proxy to an old computer i have at home (pentium-s 150mhz) and have that connect me to the internet so I can bypass this.

I've visited sites with public proxy servers and I find them slow, and I fear they're caching and watching my activity. I don't want to pay for another DSL line; I'd just like to run a router with an existing line. Will it work behind a router? Should I DMZ it or crack open port 8080 or something? If i'm the only one who is using this proxy server, will it be safe? Is it strong enough to work?

Haha, I'm a hobbist with minimal networking experience.

How about

internet -> linux box -> router ->computers on network

What you describe should work just fine. I also do the same thing. You can run squid on the linux box as a proxy server, and log into your router's setup to open the port that squid uses (3128 by default). Or even better, just open a port on the router for use with ssh, and use an ssh client (like putty) to log into your linux box from the internet, and use ssh tunneling to forward port 3128 to squid. The latter option is harder to configure though. If you need tips on that let me know.

wicked, a reply.

well, the mother board the computer i was going to use broke (the keyboard jack STOPPED working)

but if i set up squid, would i just enter the IP address given to the router with port 3128? is there any security risk having it behind the router? or is it safer?

internet -> router -> proxy -> LAN

if youre not a linux firewall expert then the above setup will be much more secure. Routers usually have decent firewalls that will keep 99% of the bad guys out. Try this

Router - 192.168.1.1
filter ports 1 - 99 and 101 - 254

Proxy Server External IP - 192.168.1.100
Proxy Server Internal IP - 192.168.0.1

Use 192.168.0.X for your LAN computers and setup 192.168.0.1 as their Gateway. Should be easy to do and pretty darn secure.

I'm not looking to connect to the proxy from my LAN, but from another location.

would that setup still work?

you should just be able to setup port forwarding on your router so the requests get passed through to your proxy server. just like hosting a web and email server from behind a router. and by having the machine behind the router it will help to protect it from other malicious connection attempts.

router's external ip 22.95.159.24 (example)
forward port 3128yo 192.168.0.100
proxy's lan ip 192.168.0.100

in your web browser, proxy address 22.95.159.24:3128

Theres always to option of installing a web based proxy on your machine. You would simply install the website on your machine which would then be setup as a web server. You could then forward all traffic for port 80 from your router to your linux box.

When your at school, you could then just simply visit your box http://192.192.5.1:80, this would give you a text field. Simply enter the web address you want to look at and it'll take you there.

You could do as what others have been saying, but I fear that there may be a firewall on your school network which could prevent you from using your own proxy server. It maybe that the firewall will only accept traffic from a specific IP address(i.e. the proxy server).

For the web based proxy, I think you can get something called CGI-Proxy. The only problem is, is that is doesnt work with secure site (or it didnt last year).

we're given the option in Netscape and Firefox to select a proxy. I have used public proxy esrvers and have it work (very very slow) but i fear that i'm being logged and stuff (despite the "anonymous" and "transparent".

also, i will learn more about networking, which is nice.