Proxy server is a server or service (a program) that forwards the requests of clients to their target servers. A client connects to the proxy server, requesting some service, which can be file, connection, web page, or other resource, available from a target server. The proxy server gets the resource by connecting to the specified target server and requesting the service on behalf of the client. A proxy server can optionally alter the client's request or the server's response, if it's necessary. It can also serve the request without contacting the target server. In this case, it would cache the first request to the target server and it's response, so it could provide this information without connecting to the target server, making getting the response faster.

A proxy server that passes all requests and replies unmodified is sometimes called a gateway or tunneling proxy. A proxy server that hides it's client's data (for example IP address) and quite often is used for anonymous web surfing sometimes is reffered as web proxy or anonymous proxy. There are also other types of proxy servers with some differences, but they all are generally aimed to provide some remote server's resources to client.

A proxy server can be placed in the user's local computer or at various points between the user and the destination servers or the Internet.

Back to IP address info