Running Proxy.py as a Lightweight HTTP Proxy on EC2

Running Proxy.py on an EC2 instance and reaching it safely through an SSH tunnel, since the proxy has no authentication of its own.

Takahiro Iwasa

2022-08-30

2 min read

Proxy.py is a lightweight HTTP proxy server that runs well on a small EC2 instance for testing or tunneling purposes.

Setting Up

Install Proxy.py:

pip install proxy.py

Start Proxy.py using this command:

proxy --port 8080

To ensure Proxy.py runs even after closing the SSH session, use the following command:

nohup proxy --port 8080 > /dev/null &

After launching, you should see logs similar to this in the terminal:

1
pid:3330 [I] plugins.load:85 - Loaded plugin proxy.http.proxy.HttpProxyPlugin
2
pid:3330 [I] tcp.listen:82 - Listening on 127.0.0.1:8080
3
pid:3330 [I] pool.setup:108 - Started 1 acceptors in threaded mode
4
...

Testing

Establish an SSH tunnel to your EC2 instance:

ssh -L 8080:localhost:8080 -i .ssh/YOUR_PRIVATE_KEY ec2-user@YOUR_HOST

Test the proxy by sending a request to Google:

curl www.google.com -x http://localhost:8080

If the proxy is working correctly, you should receive an HTML response from Google.

Conclusion

Running Proxy.py on an EC2 instance and reaching it through an SSH tunnel provided a lightweight HTTP proxy without any authentication layer of its own. proxy --port 8080 starts listening with no authentication configured, so the ssh -L 8080:localhost:8080 tunnel isn’t just how the proxy gets reached here — it’s the only thing standing between it and being an open relay if the security group happened to allow inbound traffic on that port. Running it with nohup proxy --port 8080 > /dev/null & keeps it alive after the SSH session ends, which is convenient for a small instance used for testing or tunneling, but it’s worth confirming the process is still bound to 127.0.0.1 and that the security group has no inbound rule for port 8080 before leaving it running unattended.

About the author

Takahiro Iwasa

LinkedIn

GitHub

Software Developer

This blog shares technical notes from hands-on projects—architecture, implementation, and AWS service integrations.