sockets-proxy

Python proxy server that handles HTTP/HTTPS requests

Setup:

Install the sockets module if you don't have it:

$ pip install sockets

Or via requirements.txt:

$ python3 -m venv /venv
$ source venv/bin/activate
$ pip install -r requirements.txt

Then simply run the server:

$ python3 proxy_server.py

Details

Proxy server written in python, using the socket module, capable of handling HTTP and HTTPS.

How it works

• Creates a server socket at port 8080 by default that is ready to accept incoming connections from clients (ex. Mozilla)
• Receieves requests from the browser and determines whether connections are HTTP or HTTPS
• HTTP connections get immediately resolved, HTTPS connections are persistent and stay open until closed

NOTE for HTTPS: This is not a 'Man in the middle' proxy that enables the user to see the tunneled HTTPS data, as the data sent between the browser and the remote webserver is encrypted, a man in the middle proxy would require the proxy server to have its own certificates that would decrypt the browser data, read it, and then encrypt them again and send to the remote web server. The browser and the remote web server would also need to trust the ProxyServer's certificates. This proxy only proxies the data, it does not read it. However, for HTTP connections, as they don't have encryption, the data passing through the proxy over a HTTP connection can be easily seen

• To configure the proxy with Mozilla check out this guide.
  For other browsers please check out their documentation.
  

For more in depth details and the ideas behind it, check out the Jupyter Notebook file!

Example:

• Server started and is waiting for the browser to connect to it

• Connection is accepted - here, a request is made to Python docs, for example, and each further connection is handled