34 proxy
Description
This article is from the Amiga Networking FAQ, by Richard Norman with numerous contributions by others.
34 proxy
new section
Proxy
Proxies are intended as a security measure for firewalls, but as Randall Lasini describes on his web page it can also be used to connect multiple machines to the internet over a single dial up line without having to get a unique internet address for each machine. I'll describe the basic idea here and you can get more info from his web page at
http://www.eck.net.au/~suicyde/AmiLAN.html
Although it is not a perfect solution, it is quite interesting. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) does not have to provide an internet address for each of your machines, but it would still be a good idea to get your ISP's blessing in case there are any unforseen problems or if your ISP considers it as a different form of service.
The solution requires httprox14 and HiJack which are both on Aminet and assumes you will be using an Amiga to dial into your ISP. Randall's solution was done using all Amigas with Arcnet cards, but it should be doable with any physical media that has a SANA II device driver. The solution was also performed using AmiTCP 4.2.
HiJack and httprox14 are installed on the Amiga which is connecting to the ISP. This Amiga must also being running a TCP-IP stack which supports the Gateway function. AmiTCP supports the gateway function, but it must be enabled by editing the amitcp:db/amitcp.config file. This Amiga has now become a special kind of gateway called a firewall.
Point each of your "hidden" machines to use the gateway. This is done on an application by application basis, and is not supported by all applications. Ibrowse has a preferences tool for setting a proxy gateway, but others use environment variables such as "setenv nntpserver gw-net.amiga.net" or "setenv http_proxy gw-net.amiga.net:8080" where gw-net.amiga.net is the name of your Amiga which is acting as a gateway.
The HJprox will route your applications packets to the internet and remember where the returning packets go to. Currently httpprox14 will not handle "refresh" or random links like the one at Yahoo, but if you have an upstream proxy available you might be able to use the random links.
As I said it isn't a perfect solution, but it looks quite interesting. Let me know ( and Randall!) what setups you get to work, and I'll add them to the FAQ.
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