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How To Build An HTTP Proxy In Python

How to's, Proxies, Python, Nov-15-20225 mins read

An average person might have a vague concept of the function of a proxy server. Most people associate proxy servers with attaining privacy or unblocking Netflix content from other countries. But the reality is pretty different as proxy servers do much more and are vital for businesses. You can think of proxy servers as intermediate

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An average person might have a vague concept of the function of a proxy server. Most people associate proxy servers with attaining privacy or unblocking Netflix content from other countries. But the reality is pretty different as proxy servers do much more and are vital for businesses.

You can think of proxy servers as intermediate mechanisms between the client sending the request and the server receiving the request. They have their own IP address that is made public instead. You can use the proxy IP address for many essential business functions related to customer experience and security. Other benefits of the in

Why Do You Need To Use Proxies?

Every business needs to know the five vital corporate reasons for using proxies mentioned below.

Anonymously Carrying Out Sensitive Tasks

Proxies are well-known for their ability to anonymize web traffic. But most people fail to understand their importance in the business industry. Proxy servers allow the security officers and reporters to protect themselves, companies, sources, clients, and partners.

You can also use proxies to protect the development and current research and other company activities. Suppose your company uses a proxy and a potential spy to track the web traffic to determine what your business is developing. In that case, it won’t be able to track your employees easily.

Improving Corporate and Institutional Security

You know that data breaches are costly both in terms of public image and monetary loss. So, companies are worried about hackers. But proxies can help you as they reduce the chance of data breach. They add an additional layer of security between your servers and the outside traffic. The proxy servers also act as a buffer as they face the internet and relay requests from computers outside the network.

If hackers have access to your proxy servers, they will still face trouble reaching the server that runs the web software where the data is stored.

Controlling Employee Internet Usage

You know that data breaches are costly both in terms of public image and monetary loss. So, companies are worried about hackers. But proxies can help you as they reduce the chance of data breach. They add an additional layer of security between your servers and the outside traffic. The proxy servers also act as a buffer as they face the internet and relay requests from computers outside the network.

If hackers have access to your proxy servers, they will still face trouble reaching the server that runs the web software where the data is stored.

Saving Bandwidths and Achieving Faster Speeds

Some people assume that proxy servers slow down internet speeds due to the large amount of work they accomplish in the background. But it isn’t always true. The proxy servers can be used to save bandwidth and increase speeds by:

  • Caching web pages and files accessed by multiple users
  • Compressing traffic
  • Stripping ads from websites

Building HTTP Proxy In Python

You need to follow the steps below to build an HTTP proxy in Python.

Importing Libraries

You need to import the below-mentioned necessary libraries.

  • A simple_http_server
  • A SimpleWebSocketServer
  • urllib
from simple_websocket_server import WebSocketServer, WebSocket
import simple_http_server
import urllib

The urllib module fetches the target web pages. On the other hand, the simple_http_server and SimpleWebSocketServer listen to the incoming requests.

You can initialize the port as: 

PORT = 9097

Getting Requests

You can inherit SimpleHTTPRequestHandler to create your proxy. You can define a function do_GET which will be called for all the GET requests. 

class MyProxy(simple_http_server.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler):
   def do_GET(self):
   	url=self.path[1:]
   	self.send_response(200)
   	self.end_headers()
     self.copyfile(urllib.urlopen(url), self.wfile)

Removing URL slash

In the above code line, the URL will have a slash (/) at the beginning from the browsers. You can use the below code line to remove the slash. 

url=self.path[1:]

Sending Headers

You have to send the headers as the browsers need them to report a successful fetch with the HTTP status code of 200. You can use the urllib library to fetch the URL.

We used the copyfile function to write the URL back to the browser in the code below. 

self.send_response(200)
self.end_headers()
self.copyfile(urllib.urlopen(url), self.wfile)

Using TCP

You can use the ForkingTCPServer mode for interrupt handling as shown in the code below. 

httpd = WebSocketServer.ForkingTCPServer(('', PORT), MyProxy)
httpd.serve_forever()

The whole code is as: 

from simple_websocket_server import WebSocketServer, WebSocket
import simple_http_server
import urllib
PORT = 9097
MyProxy(simple_http_server.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler):
	def do_GET(self):
	   url=self.path[1:]
	   self.send_response(200)
	   self.end_headers()
    	self.copyfile(urllib.urlopen(url), self.wfile)
httpd = WebSocketServer.ForkingTCPServer(('', PORT), MyProxy)
print ("Now serving at"	str(PORT))
httpd.serve_forever()

Which Proxies To Use?

You might think there is the only type of proxy that provides all benefits to businesses, such as:

  • Preventing data breaches
  • Setting competitive prices
  • Collecting valuable data on social media
  • Building an effective SEO strategy

In reality, there are many types of proxies available, and the one to use depends on your requirements or use case.

Given below are the most common types of proxies.

Data Center Proxies

Data center proxies are the most common proxies used by businesses worldwide. Data centers produce and manage these proxies. You can use these proxies if you have to improve the security of your system as they are cheap and easy to acquire. But some websites ban their use as they associate them with bot-like activity.

Residential Proxies

The residential proxies are associated with physical residences and use the IP addresses of actual people provided by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). When you use them to connect to a website, you look like an everyday user. Thus, you are less likely to be detected and banned. You can scrape a large amount of web data using residential proxies and achieve improved anonymity and security.

Conclusion

So far, we discussed that you should use high-quality proxies for your business. It is because free proxies are publicly available and are used by many people while reducing network speeds. Also, the hackers hack the IP addresses of these users to access their platforms. Further, there is a likelihood that the websites ban the free proxy IP addresses that want to scrape the data from their site. Apart from using data center proxies, you can buy residential proxies to reap almost all benefits of proxies. Although they are costly, they are a worthy investment for your business.

By: ProxyScrape

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