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Parent proxies

Polipo will usually fetch instances directly from source servers as this configuration minimises latency. In some cases, however, it may be useful to have Polipo fetch instances from a parent proxy.

The variable parentHost specifies the hostname or IP address of a parent proxy; Polipo will contact this proxy using the port number specified by parentPort.

If the parent proxy requires authorisation, the username and password should be specified in the variable parentAuthCredentials in the form username:password. Only Basic authentication is supported, which is vulnerable to replay attacks.

The main application of the parent proxy support is to cross firewalls. Given a machine, say trurl, with unrestricted access to the web, the following evades a firewall by using an encrypted compressed ssh link:

     $ ssh -f -C -L 8124:localhost:8123 trurl polipo
     $ polipo parentHost=localhost parentPort=8124