Proxy server for changing geolocation - recommendations wanted

[Karl Auer]

On Mon, 2021-10-11 at 14:00 +0100, Chris Green wrote:
> I want to set up a simple proxy server so that I can use my UK
> library services and my doctor's web site when I'm abroad 

Is this a one-off trip, a regular thing, or a frequent thing? The more
frequent, the more time and money you can reasonably invest in a
solution.

A proxy server would not be a good idea unless you have some way to
authenticate yourself to it; otherwise it is effectively a proxy for
everyone on the Internet. It will not take long for the rest of the
Internet to find it, either.

A better idea would be a VPN, which is all about authentication. If you
run any of the popular NASes at home, like Synology, QNAP etc, you'll
find they have VPN capabilities built in. Very easy to set up, but you
would have to leave systems running at home while you were away - and
not that useful unless you have a static IP address.

Alternatively, as you are not seeking security but only an IP address
in the UK, sign up with a UK-based VPN provider (or a VPN provider that
allows you to choose your apparent location). They don't cost much.

If you want ONLY to access a couple of specific websites, you don't
need any special software at all - just a system in the UK that you can
ssh into. Given these facts:

- your ssh server is myserver.co.uk
- you are user "chris" on your ssh server
- your doctor's website is [www].mydoc.co.uk

then when you are in France you need to do three things as follows:

1: Add this line to the top of /etc/hosts on your laptop:

   127.0.0.1 mydoc.co.uk www.mydoc.co.uk

2: Put this in ~/.ssh/config

   Host myserver
      Hostname myserver.co.uk
      User chris
      Port 22
      IdentityFile /path/to/server/ssh/key

3: Execute this command on your laptop:

   ssh -N -f -L 8443:mydoc.co.uk:443 myserver

Now browse to https://mydoc.co.uk:8443 and use your doctor's website.

When you are done, just "killall ssh" (or "killall -i ssh" if you have
other ssh connections you want to keep).

To access your library, just add your library's hostnames to that first
line in /etc/hosts and run a second ssh command exactly the same as the
first but with a different left-hand port number (i.e., not 8443). The
actual port numbers are irrelevant as long as they are not already in
use and are over 1024.

If you don't have a system in the UK that you can log into via ssh, let
me know off-list.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer

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