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jftpgw 0.0.10a
Last update: Sun Jul 23 17:41:45 CEST 2000
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Joachim Wieland
What the heck is a transparent proxy?
A transparent proxy is a proxy that is tansparent :-), i.e. one the user does not notice. Thus the user does not have to configure his programs, the programs do not have to support a proxy and so on... A special service like http or in our example ftp is redirected to a port a proxy listens on. Then this proxy program manages the connection.
What do I need to setup jftpgw as a a transparent proxy server
  • jftpgw v0.0.10 or higher on the proxy machine
  • you must be root on the proxy machine
  • the kernel must support packet redirecting without rewriting the target address (CONFIG_IP_TRANSPARENT_PROXY=y for Linux)
  • the client machine must route all IP traffic through the proxy machine
  • a regular FTP program to transfer the files

How to setup jftpgw with transparent support
First, of course, compile jftpgw in the normal fashion. Make sure that the bindport option is not on the standard port 21 but on some other. Furthermore, defaultforward must be commented out since the target is read from the IP packets.

Now, become root and (I assume you're using Linux ipchains and you run jftpgw on the port 2370) issue the following command:

ipchains -A input -d 0/0 ftp -p tcp -j REDIRECT 2370
That's it. Now the proxy machine intercepts the TCP packets that go to any host on the FTP port and forwards them to the port 2370 on the proxy machine. There, jftpgw looks at the real destination address and connects to the ftp server there.
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