Python Network Programming: Proxy Servers

A proxy server is used to browse websites anonymously through another server. It can also be used to bypass blocking of specific IP addresses.

We use the urllib module’s urlopen method to access a website by passing the proxy server address as a parameter.

Example

In the following example, we use the proxy address to access the twitter.com website anonymously. The response status is OK, indicating successful access through the proxy server.

import urllib
URL = 'https://www.twitter.com'
PROXY_ADDRESS = "265.24.11.6:8080"
if __name__ == '__main__':
resp = urllib.urlopen(URL, proxies = {"http" : PROXY_ADDRESS})
print "Proxy server returns response headers: %s " %resp.headers

When we run the above program, we get the following output −

Proxy server returns response headers: cache-control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, pre-check=0, post-check=0
content-length: 145960
content-type: text/html;charset=utf-8
date: Mon, 02 Jul 2018 02:06:19 GMT
expires: Tue, 31 Mar 1981 05:00:00 GMT
last-modified: Mon, 02 Jul 2018 02:06:19 GMT
pragma: no-cache
server: tsa_n
set-cookie: fm=0; Expires=Mon, 02 Jul 2018 02:06:10 GMT; Path=/; Domain=.twitter.com; Secure; HTTPOnly
set-cookie: _twitter_sess=BAh7CSIKZmxhc2hJQzonQWN0aW9uQ29udHJvbGxlcjo6Rmxhc2g6OkZsYXNo%250ASGFzaHsABjoKQHVzZWR7ADoPY3JlYXRlZF9hdGwrCAifvVhkAToMY3NyZl9p%250AZCIlNz lhY2ZhMzdmNGFkYTU0ZTRmMDkxODRhNWNiYzI0MDI6B2lkIiUyZTgy%250AOTAyYjY4NTBkMzE3 YzNjYTQwNzZjZDhhYjZhMQ%253D%253D--6807256d74a01129a7b0dcf383f56f169fb8a66c; Path=/; Domain=.twitter.com; Secure; HTTPOnly
set-cookie: personalization_id="v1_iDacJdPWUx3e81f8UErWTA=="; Expires=Wed, 01 Jul 2020 02:06:19 GMT; Path=/; Domain=.twitter.com
set-cookie: guest_id=v1%3A153049717939764273; Expires=Wed, 01 Jul 2020 02:06:19 GMT; Path=/; Domain=.twitter.com
set-cookie: ct0=50c8b59b09322825cd750ea082e43bdc; Expires=Mon, 02 Jul 2018 08:06:19 GMT; Path=/; Domain=.twitter.com; Secure
status: 200 OK
strict-transport-security: max-age=631138519
x-connection-hash: 89dfbab81abc35dd8f618509c6171bd3
x-content-type-options: nosniff
x-frame-options: SAMEORIGIN
x-response-time: 312
x-transaction: 007b998000f86eaf
x-twitter-response-tags: BouncerCompliant
x-ua-compatible: IE=edge,chrome=1
x-xss-protection: 1; mode=block; report=https://twitter.com/i/xss_report