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I'm trying to get my credit report but I'm overseas and the site uses GeoIP filtering.

I need one of my non-techie friends in the US to set up a temporary proxy server I can connect through to bypass that. Nothing fancy, it's just to browse that one website.

What's the quickest/easiest one to set up?

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4 Answers

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proxy is part of the issue,

your other issue is dealing with port forwarding, and a reverse tunnel ssh solution to that covers proxies.

you could go to http://portforward.com/ or get his manual and try to walk him through it. and exception in their firewall, entering your IP so making it secure, so either you have the burden of talking them through it, or you have a burden on you to set up a lot your end and make it simple for them.. So not so easy.

You can make it quick and easy for them but to set it all up is quite a bit for you to do first time anyway.

I'm not going to use terminology client/server except where it's unambiguous.

The terms initiator and listener are sufficiently self explanatory, particularly for a reader that could get remotely close to doing this or understanding it.

you need some reverse tunnel ssh connection..

you could do a reverse VNC connection to him. PCHelpware can create an EXE they run it and you access their computer.. even that can be a hassle to create. But that's VNC style.

but if you want a web proxy, I don't know if there's any automated thing out there..

But OpenSSH has options to do it minus any EXE. The result is like this

let's call the person that can't do anything, the END USER/EU.

You'd want to give the EU an EXE or at least some package, that'd do the following..

A is a web server
B is SSH initiator

C is a web/http client, a web browser

D is an SSH listener. 

EU                                YOU

(A)LISTENER                         (C)INITIATOR

(B)INITIATOR                        (D)LISTENER

A and B are connected.
C and D are connected.

B connects to D

that's the connection in actuality.

Now they're all connected and C can effectively(though not in actuality) connect to A through C,D,B,A

via a connection made in actuality, (to put it another way) as B to A, B to D, C to D.
to put it another way, B connects to A and D. Then C can I won't say connect, but reach A and for all intents and purposes think it's connecting directly to A.

initiators can connect to listeners not vice versa.
EU can connect to You but not vice versa.

That could be made easy for the EU. Though would take some work to setup at your end in putting it in a package so they just run an EXE. Might be interesting to setup though.

SSH has some options like -L and maybe -R that are relevant.

That's an outline of how you'd set it up, make an EXE and it's very easy for the end user! Very quick for them!

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Oh wow, That is some seriously detailed. tutorial. I'm speechless. Very impressive! Thank you! (I'm familiar with port forwarding but others will find it useful) – gozu Sep 16 '11 at 9:39
It's detailed in terms of the concept, though you'd still need to work out the 2 SSH commands, one on the EU's comp, one on your comp. There are many tutorials on SSH reverse tunnels that give examples of those 2 commands like howtoforge.com/reverse-ssh-tunneling And you'd still need to find some way to package it up. What might be easier, since involves no SSH, is VNC offers a "reverse connection" that or PCHelpWare. Once you can view their machine, you can even configure their router remotely! – barlop Sep 16 '11 at 10:00
up vote 1 down vote

AnalogX Proxy

Do you have several machines on a network, but only one connection to the internet? Wish you could browse the net from the other machines, just like you can from the machine that's connected? Then what you're looking for is called a Proxy Server, and AnalogX has just what you want. AnalogX Proxy is a small and simple server that allows any other machine on your local network to route its requests through a central machine.

enter image description here

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Could you elaborate on how this will solve the problem? – Simon Sheehan Aug 30 '11 at 0:51
Remember to keep running the proxy in open mode ignoring the warning message, otherwise you will not be able to access it from an external network. – TiCL Aug 30 '11 at 9:21
I wouldn't have paid any attention to Simon Sheehan's insistance on explaining how a proxy server helps solve the problem, when the questioner asked for a proxy server and made it clear. It's pretty obvious. But the picture is useful though since it shows this thing has quite a bit of useful looking functionality neatly and simply designed. I wonder if actually a SOCKS proxy (SOCKS is listed there I see), would actually do all of those other functions listed individually there! so perhaps it's somewhat for show, in a sense! – barlop Sep 15 '11 at 16:27
up vote 1 down vote

A few options come to mind. I'm assuming he's running windows, and as such tinyproxy is out of the question.A ssh server + an account would work, if he's capable of port forwarding if need be - you could then use an account on that system plus typical SSH tunneling.

Polipo might also be a good option - you can get the windows version here its a caching proxy server, and you can do the setup file for him, get him to open poliporc in his start menu, and paste in your new one if the default options don't suit you

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up vote 1 down vote

Few years ago I used YourFreeDom to foil Ipcop of my etablissement in order to connect on each web site that I wanted. If it helps you

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