Learning to set up a proxy server is important if you ever want to become a power user. The word “proxy” means “substitute” or anything that serves as an agent, an enabler. Online a proxy is usually a computer that acts as a substitute server. In computer networks, a proxy server is a server,which acts as a mediator for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers. Anything and everything needed has to go through the proxy; no exceptions. The proxy’s job is to check out all requests and issue denials as warranted (by its set of pre-defined rules). Perhaps the most common such rule is banning access by clients on certain IP addresses.

When you want to set up a proxy server, it helps to do your homework and thoroughly research all that’s involved. To start off, let’s take a look at something by the name of WinProxy. The main reason for its popularity is that no software needs to be installed on the client systems. WinProxy is a transparent proxy server, which means that it also provides NAT (Network Address Translation). This ensures that the client system is unaware of the proxy server’s existence. Other than administrative stuff like caching and security, the usual complement of protocols are available.

Configuration is not hard at all with WinProxy. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better alternative to set up a proxy server. Just make sure to take common initial steps such as installing TCP/IP on your network. After that you can go on to install WinProxy itself on your system. The software can be bought from stores and also downloaded. Newbies should use the handy installation wizard for automatic installation. Like most such wizards, you’ll be prompted for your produce license serial number right away. The next two screens gathers information about the type of Internet connection that will be used- dial-up or broadband. You need to select the connection’s type and name. Next,it will ask to enter the username and password of the Internet connection. WinProxy then configures the internal and external IP addresses for the network. Now what’s really interesting is how it turn internal LAN addresses into unique IP addys. What your ISP assigned for your modem or router winds up being the external address. The external address is the IP address,which will be displayed to a user from another network,when his system interacts with any device from your network. WinProxy will then prompt the you to disconnect from the Internet,if you are already connected.In the final step, WinProxy verifies all the steps and ensures that all operations have been performed properly.