Create Your Own Online Proxy Server

How To Create Your Own Online Proxy Server In Minutes

I had quite a lot of trouble last week with a company’s browsing restrictions. It used an extensive directory of ‘forbidden websites’ that kept out all but a few popular sites. In effect, no games sites, no personal email, and no MakeUseOf.
None of the conventional proxy servers worked, and even Google Translate failed. My hopes were down until, yesterday, I discovered that one of my personal domains could be accessed.
Back on my home computer, in a matter of minutes, I had set up my own functioning proxy server. With the instructions below, so can you.

Prerequisites
If we want to pull this off there are a few things you need.

Web Host
In theory, any webhost will do, if they comply with the other requirements; an old computer in your basement, or even a free online webhost.

PHP5 or greater and cURL
Look for this on the website of your webhost. If it’s paid hosting, you can almost count on it. Especially cURL is a feature that’ll be disabled on most free webservers.

Permission
That’s right. Some webhosts will explicitly forbid you to create a proxy server (or a chat room, for that matter) in their terms of content. And you can expect them to find out.

1. Download and Install GlypeProxy

GlypeProxy is a free, standalone PHP script. That means it’s lightweight and incredibly easy to configure. You can download it from their website.
Next, upload the files to a sub directory on your webserver. If you see a folder called ‘www’, or called after your domain name (e.g. domain.com) create the sub folder in there. You need to avoid using the word ‘proxy’, because some companies pick up on it. Instead, use ‘web’ or ‘surf’.
There are a few different ways to upload your files. If you already know this, skip to the next paragraph. Here they are arranged from the least to the most effort.
Upload and unpack ZIP
Look in the filemanager for an ‘unpack’ or ‘extract’ option. You can then upload it in one take. This is not always supported.
FTP access
Use an FTP application to access your webhost, and let it transfer the files while you fetch some more coffee. Most often supported.
Manual upload
You really don’t want to do this – are you sure the previous two alternatives are blanked out? Your last resolve will be to manually upload all the files and folder structures. Or start looking for a different host – it might not be such a bad idea.

2. Ready For Use

There’s no real set-up needed. Just point your browser to the directory where you put all those files (ex. domain.com/surf) and GlypeProxy will pop up. If you don’t like the logo, you’ll have to replace it manually. But if you want a proxy server for personal use, some little branding won’t matter.
Users can enter any URL and, after expanding the options, choose to encode the URL, the page, allow cookies, scripts and objects. Encoding the page can help you access some sites that are still being picked up and intercepted, but might give you a corrupt webpage at times.

3. Admin Preferences

Although Glype is a powerful proxy script, the admin tools are obviously the backing power. You might not know this, but a lot of online proxy tools are powered by Glype, just like the one you just set up. The admin preferences leave room not only for customization, but for improvement. You can assign site-specific code for trouble-giving websites, and change user-agent and proxy lists.
Most useful to novice users will be the caching tools (pictured above), logs, and blacklists. The caching tools can help you improve the browsing speed by storing some files from all, or some of the already visited websites. Logs are off by default, but might have legal importance in the future, depending on who uses your proxy server. Always explicitly mention you’re keeping these logs. Finally, the blacklists will allow you to block (all but) a few sites, or users.
To access your admin panel, point your browser to admin.php on your webserver (e.g. domain.com/surf/admin.php).
Are you setting up your own personal proxy server? Do you have any other tips or experiences on the issue? Let us know in the comments below!

Why You Should Make Your Own Server

Why You Should Make Your Own Server

You’ve probably heard at some point that servers aren’t only for those that have a lot of money. In fact, anyone who has a spare box sitting around somewhere in their house can have their very own server, slaving away at whatever whims you may have. Although it sounds very cool, it does take some effort and a little know-how to get it all set up.

So, before you get all sad and throw that spare box in the dump, here are five reasons why you should take the effort into making your own server.

1. You Control Your Data

If you’re an avid user of the Web, you probably have all kinds of information spread out over multiple servers and websites. For example, chances are you use Dropbox. Although it’s extremely convenient, your files are ultimately stored on their servers, so that means they control your data. You can protect yourself through different methods of encryption, but the storage location stays the same. You can change that by setting up your own server to hold your data. That way, what’s yours stays yours, and it will stay that way as long as you run your own server. With good security, other prying eyes won’t be able to see what you’re storing on your own server, so privacy is included.

2. You Build Your Own Services

With your own server, you can do whatever you want with it. Run an email server to handle all your email (although saying goodbye to Gmail would probably be the hardest thing known to a geek), a proxy, FTP server, and many other combinations. You could even run your own version of Dropbox with enough help, or create your very own services that you may be in need of. The possibilities are endless, and you get to choose.

3. No Surprises

Since you’re in control (this is pretty much the main idea), there won’t (or at least shouldn’t) be any surprises when it comes to your server. Aside from the small possibility of hardware failure, nothing in terms of the services that your server offers should suddenly change without you doing anything. While third party services may change the way their services or products work, yours won’t. You configure it to exactly how you want it, and then it stays that way until you change it again to meet your needs.

4. Have Fun With Your Server

In the spirit of control and adding whatever you please, why not install some game servers in the meantime? There are so many different games such as Minecraft and Urban Terror that have software for servers that you can run to host your very own games. These games can have their own rules and customizations, making it even more fun for you and all your friends. Again, the possibilities are endless, and you can run as many different game servers as your RAM will hold and your CPU can handle.

5. It’s Pretty Inexpensive

The costs of running a server are actually pretty insignificant, especially when you don’t need it at all times of the day. Your server will more than likely need to be connected to the Internet, but unless your regular Internet connection has major limitations that can’t let you successfully run your server on that connection, you can use the Internet connection that you’re using for your desktop or laptop right now. You can also get a free DNS name from a few different places like DynDNS if you don’t have a lot of needs for your server so that you can connect to your server without having to remember an IP address that might change occasionally.
The software should be free in most cases, and the operating system will more than likely be Linux (it’s recommended, anyways), so no costs will appear there. In the end, it’s really just the cost of electricity, which can be managed if say the server doesn’t have to be on while you’re asleep.
Conclusion
Running your own server brings many advantages that could make your life a lot easier and less stressful. After all the work in getting it set up, you can pride yourself in the fact that you have your very own server that you can do whatever you want with. In the end, it should be well worth it, with a spare box well used. If not, you can always check out this MakeUseOf guide to giving that old box new life.