Can slackware be configured as a proxy?
i have a home pc running slackware 9.0

i wanna know if it's possible for it to be configured as proxy?

sorry my knowledge in the networking field is so limited that this questions may sounds study, but pls.. make way for a newbie

thx

Yes, Slackware can function as a proxy.

I assume you're talking about a HTTP proxy (which caches webpages and can do some basic authorization who can use the proxy and who not).

If you want a nice HTTP proxy for Linux, I recommend the Squid Web Proxy Cache.

(
The homepage of this project is : "http://www.squid-cache.org", if want to do some research on this tool.
)

Slackware 9.0 packages can be found at :

"http://www.linuxpackages.net".
"http://www.linuxpackages.net/details.php?name=squid".

ok that's good...

btw, is proxy something that mask up my ip address?
last time someone told me that if i use a proxy, i could change my ipaddress(hiding the real 1)... is it about proxy?

or is there actually another program?

thx

A proxy is best described something like "on behalf of ... "

Basically there are 2 methods for use to enable a group of computers on the internet (or another network) as if they're coming from one computer :

- Proxying
- Network masquerading

A proxy server has more capabilities (logging who does what, extended access control, caching posibilities, etc... ) while network masquerading is more basic, more on the 'network level'.

See the TCP/IP Network Model :

http://www.ussg.iu.edu/usail/network...rk_layers.html

And yes, some people use someone else's proxy server to cover their tracks. That is called an 'open proxy'. Most of the time these are badly configured proxy servers which are crackable.

Edit : only the bad people (spammers, etc.. ) abuse these kind of badly configured proxies. I hate spammers.

If you run Squid Proxy and validate the users on an Windows NT domain, is the users access written in the log file use the users name (or login) taken from NT, or the IP Address. The reason I ask is that we will be using Terminal Services with access to the internet via the Linux machine running Squid Proxy. Hense this will mean that all requests will come from the same IP address (the Windows Terminal Services Machine) but different user logins (whatever user is logged in).

Thanks for your help.
Scott Thompson

oh... only spammers do this kind of stuff?

i thought i could use it to mask my ip to increase security when i'm online.....
i often chat in irc, that's y i need some protection......

anyway thanks for the reply....

Scotttiamit : The way I personally use Squid is to allow certain IP adresses access to the proxy. Unfortunately, I've got no experience using Squid combined with NT authentication. However, the keywords which should help you further with this project are "squid + samba + winbind". Google for them, you'll find some posts scattered around the net about this subject. I found (among other) the following URL's :

http://www1.br.squid-cache.org/Doc/FAQ/FAQ-23.html
http://ranger.dnsalias.com/mandrake/...t/csamba5.html

Good luck!


Elliore : It's not good 'netiquette' (I hate that word) to hide behind _somebody else's_ IP-adress without that person knowing you doing that. Unless ofcourse, you build a machine _by yourself for yourself_ specially for that purpose. :-)

ah cropcircle, i have never meant to hide myself with other's ip... yes i wanna build my own.... i wanna use a spare computer to protect the main computer.... that's wat i'm planning and seeking a way to do..... that's y i asked my first question.....


back and back, a proxy server, like squid can do wat i'm wanting to accomplish?

thx..

squid will proxy for http, ftp, and a couple of other protocols but I think not IRC.

However you can run one machine as a router - IP masquerading, or NAT - and to protect an IRC connection from another machine. Course you can't hide the IP of the router!

I don't know where to look in slackware, but you could look up iptables, it's built into Linux 2.4 - http://www.netfilter.org/

Scotttiamit: are you asking about what's logged by squid? The one I'm working on, squid is logging the username and IP (on the LAN) for each access.

A destination webserver on the internet should be able to log only the squid box's IP, but squid can be configured to send HTTP headers that say "on-behalf-of". I don't believe the webserver will see any part of the user's authentication to squid.

If in doubt about this, visit a webserver where you know the admin, and ask for a look at the webserver logs. There are also proxy checkers that will tell you what information came with your web request, sorry don't have a URL.

Soob: What version do you use of squid? I am currently trialing SquidNT 2.5 on Windows, but don't mind moving to Linux box and running Squid. Prehaps the logging differs between these two versions? Are you using authentication? If so what type? I presume this is required as http header only include IP Addresses not usernames right?

I was also looking at using Smoothwall but again it is my understanding that usernames are not used in the log file.

Thanks for your help Cropcircle and Soob.

Regards Scott.

Oo, I didn't even think of running squid on Windows. They've got squid 2.4stable7 on a redhat box. It uses the msnt_auth module to check user/pass against the NT server sitting next to it. Yeah, they want authent mostly to see who's costing them the most in downloads... I'm still working on that part.

Have a look through the squid FAQ, it gives great detail about what's in the logfiles. (It's a really comprehensive FAQ.) From the page below, it might be worth you trying a different log format, they seem to have different info.

http://www.squid-cache.org/Doc/FAQ/FAQ-6.html#ss6.6