Understanding how to set up a proxy server is important if you ever want to become a power user. In simple terms, proxy usually means acting as a substitute or an agent. In case of telecommunication, it is used for a device or program empowered to act for another. In computing a proxy server is simply an informational middleman, if you will; it handles exchanges between the requester and the ultimate server. The requester is known as the client, and has to go through the proxy in order to get anything. The proxy server analyzes the request according to its filtering rules. Perhaps the most common such rule is banning access by clients on certain IP addresses.
To properly set up a proxy server, a wide variety of choices exist out there. To start off, let’s take a look at something by the name of WinProxy. People really like it because everything’s absolutely invisible to the requester, with nothing to install on the client computer. Another reason is NAT, or Network Address Translation, since WinProxy is what’s known as a transparent proxy. This is important, since proxys are usually used for purposes of anonymity. WinProxy acts just like any other server, dealing with security issues and all the various protocols online – except when it needs to serve as a substitute, a proxy.
Getting it going is fairly simple and quick to do. It’s a great option when you want to set up a proxy server. First off, TCP/IP needs to be set up on everything that will be handled by WinProxy. Then, install WinProxy on the system, which you want to act as the proxy server. Which, by the way, is available on-demand as a file download. When you begin the installation, you get the option to run the Install Wizard. Like most such wizards, you’ll be prompted for your produce license serial number right away. From there the programs automated setup routine will determine your internet connection type for you. Sometimes you’ll have to tell the program yourself. Then comes the login info – namely, username and password. Most other things, you can let WinPoxy deal with. Now perhaps the best thing of all is how it will make an internal LAN address into an anonymous IP address. It uses what your ISP gave you and turns that into an external address. The external address is the IP address,which will be displayed to a user from another network,when his system interacts with any device from your network. By now you would be practically at the end of setup, ready to take on the worldwide web anonymously through your proxy server, courtesy WinProxy.