Setup SOCKS proxy

This how-to guide explains how to access the development environment using a SOCKS proxy  , which offers an alternative method for accessing the environment via a web browser. This is an alternative to using the default simple HTTP(s) forward proxy, as described in Create the Reverse Proxy and Web Proxy and Configure a FireFox Profile. The SOCKS proxy is established through an SSH connection to c2d-rproxy1 and provides more advanced protocol support beyond just HTTP and HTTPS.

Prerequisites

Create the reverse and forward proxy c2d-rproxy1.

c2
unset PLAY  # ensure all plays run
vagrant up c2d-rproxy1

For more information about the various roles that c2d-rproxy1 performs in this project:

• Setup Reverse Proxy and CA server
• Setup SOCKS proxy
• Managing Server Certificates as a Certificate Authority
• Setup DNS for Kubernetes

Overview

SSH Configuration

To set up the SOCKS proxy, add the following section to your .ssh/config file:

Host c2d_socks
  User vagrant
  IdentityFile ~/.vagrant.d/insecure_private_key
  StrictHostkeyChecking no
  UserKnownHostsFile /dev/null
  Hostname 1.1.4.205
  LogLevel INFO
  Compression yes
  DynamicForward 9903
  ServerAliveInterval 10
  ServerAliveCountMax 10

Starting the SOCKS Proxy

Now, you can start the SOCKS proxy using the following command:

ssh c2d_socks

Creating a Firefox Profile

Similar to Configure a FireFox Profile , create a Firefox profile. However, configure the Network Settings as shown below:

Verification

Navigate to https://c2platform.org/is-alive  . If everything is set up correctly, you should see the following message, and there should be no security or certificate warnings since the certificate should be trusted:

Apache is alive