AnalogX Proxy is a small, light, easy to use proxy server, freeware, and quick to download. It's very easy to configure, but you may have to install aditional sofware and re-configure a few things in order for everything to work. This is all explained below.
This text is largely based on the readme.txt that comes with AnalogX Proxy.
I've rewritten it a bit as a 'Quick Start' guide - Click here to see the original text, which contains additional, more complete information. If you need a brief intro in setting up a home network and setting up TCP/IP, you may have a look at this introduction.
(server : machine that will have the connection to the internet)
If you want to be able to send and receive e- mail from all your computers, you'll need to configure the e-mail settings as well. We'll come to that later.
first there are a few other things you should check.
internet connection, browser, and e-mail from the machine where proxy is running (server machine): does the dial up networking still function ? Can you browse the web without using Proxy ? This needs to be working because proxy will dial your default dial-up connection to connect the other computer to the internet.
You'll probably have TCP/IP -> Dial-up Adapter' there already, but you need also TCP/IP -> your network card. Click 'Add' : Protocol. Then choose 'properties' for TCP/IP->your network card and enter IP address and subnet mask. The workstations do not need Dial-Up adapter any more as they will connect to the internet through the ^proxy server. On the server, however, the Dial_Up adapter needs to be configured so that it can communicate with your internet provider (i.e. apply the settings provided by your ISP), while the network adapter needs to be configured so that it has an IP address and a subnet mask to match the addresses and sunbnet masks of the other PC's on your network.
To check if the computers can 'see' each other over TCP/IP you can 'ping' them : Choose 'Run' from the start menu, or start a DOS session, and type 'ping [IP]', so if the other machine you want to ping has the IP of '10.0.0.1', you would type 'ping 10.0.0.1'. If the machines can see each other, this will say something like 'Reply from...' blah blah blah;
if they can NOT see each other, this will say something like 'Request timed out.'
See readme file for more trouble shooting tips.
If you use Internet Explorer, on each machine you want to be able to access the proxy on, just go into the Control Panel->Internet Options, and select the tab 'Connections'. You'll see a button called 'LAN Settings', just click on it, and you'll see the proxy settings. For most systems, all you will need to do is check the 'Use a proxy server' box, enter the IP address of the machine the proxy server is running on (in the example above, this would be '10.0.0.1', and set the Port # to 6588.
Select 'Ok', launch your browser, and you should be good to go! You can also add the
proxy server's IP address and port numbers for other protocols from this list, in the "Advanced" Proxy Settings of Internet Explorer.
If you use Netscape, go to the Edit->Preferences->Category->Advanced->Proxies-> Manual->View. Here you'll be able to input the IP and port address mentioned in the IE config process.
RealAudio can be configured to work with AnalogX Proxy as well... With the G2 version (or newer), just go into Preferences and select the 'Transport' tab. Then, select 'Use specified transport', and click on 'RTSP Settings' and 'RTA Settings' buttons; finally, set them both to 'Use HTTP Only'. That's it! Now RealAudio will stream via the Proxy!
Configuring Email is a little trickier, so make sure you have the web browser proxy working properly before doing this. You now have two methods,
one is to use the method described below, which can sometimes be a pain to get working,
the other is to just use Socks4 and a client that either supports it, or works with Socksify (refer to the section below about Socks).The latter is really easy
If you want to try the normal method, open up the 'Configure' menu, and select 'Configure Email Alias's'; you'll be presented with the email account configuration area. Select 'Add' from the menu; this is where you will enter in the servers you check your email from...
First, you need to enter the email address that people send messages to, like 'bob@domain.com'. Next, you need to set the POP3 server, which is where your email program goes when it receives email; normally this will be something along the lines of 'pop3.domain.com' or 'mail.domain.com'. Finally, you need to set the SMTP server, which is what your emails are sent through, which in the above example could be something like 'smtp.domain.com'.
Now, it's important to note that not every service uses two different names for the server, you might check both POP3 and SMTP from the same server; in this case you can just leave the SMTP field blank. That's it for the proxy!
Now you have added email support for this particular user.
You need to set up the configuration of the email program you use; this varies from program to program, but you need to go to wherever you enter both the servers that the program checks. Now, instead of entering 'mail.domain.com' or whatever your mailserver
is, you'll enter the IP address of your proxy server, such as '10.0.0.1'. It's important to note that you won't need to change the port settings in the email program, since the proxy uses the
same ports a normal server would. Also, you will set both the SMTP, as well as the POP3 servers to the same IP address; the proxy will make sure they get to the correct place. Now, let's
check out your configuration; try sending an email to yourself... If everything is configured properly, they you should be good to go!
One more thing to note about email; it will only support using a certain username once; for example, you can't have bill@homecomputer.com and bill@workcomputer.com; but you can have bill@homecomputer.com and sue@another.com. In most cases this shouldn't be a problem for users, since most people have different usernames for each account. This way, it was easier to make the program work, but it has a down side.
One other note about email; if you have a different login name than email name (like you check mail by using the login name bill, but your email address is billyg@computer.com), then you'll need to create TWO alias in the email section; one just like normal, using billyg@computer.com, and one using the login name in place of the email name (so bill@computer.com).
In order to use the FTP portion of AnalogX Proxy, you must use a dedicated FTP program, like CuteFTP (you can find all of the FTP clients for any platform on http://www.tucows.com/), and you MUST configure it to use a Proxy/Firewall. Also, somewhere in it's options (usually where you turn on the Proxy option), you'll have to select one more option, and that's Proxy Type... You'll want it to be something like this 'USER user@domain.com'; this sets the format of the request to AnalogX Proxy so it knows what you're trying to connect to. Refer to your specific programs docs about how to configure it, but don't email me - I only use CuteFTP and Microsofts FTP, so I won't know how to configure yours. Also, this will NOT work with browsers, since they do not (currently) support proxying of FTP requests in the same manner. Proxy also supports the use of the OPEN command, so if your FTP client can be configured to issue 'OPEN domain.com' then the proxy will automatically route the connection through.
Socks4 is a protocol that allows other programs not specifically written to work with a proxy to work - *VERY* cool. NEC (the main force behind Socks) has made a program called 'SocksCap' available for free here:
http://www.socks.nec.com/reference/sockscap.html
It is the primary way you get non-proxy programs to work. Just install it, configure it to point to the proxy's IP address (10.0.0.1 or whatever) at port 1080, and then set it up to work with whatever programs you normally use. (Add Application, then enter or browse to the application's .exe - that's all) Then, when you want to use them on your proxy'd machines, you simply launch them through SocksCap Control window, and it takes care of the rest; nice!
You can even drag/drop shortcuts from the SocksCap control to e.g. your desktop, so you can start the program (e.g. your email) + SocksCap both through the same shortcut. Works wonderful t