How to Build a Proxy Farm on a VPS

Introduction

A self-hosted proxy farm on a VPS is a way to gain full control over your proxy infrastructure. You rent VPS instances in different countries and install proxy servers on them.

Basic Setup

Hosting Selection

Criteria for choosing a VPS for a proxy farm:
- Diversity of subnets (different /24s)
- Low latency to target resources
- Proxy traffic allowed in ToS
- Clean IPs (not blacklisted)
- Multiple locations

Installing 3proxy

sudo apt update && sudo apt install 3proxy

Configuration /etc/3proxy/3proxy.cfg:

nscache 65536
timeouts 1 5 30 60 180 1800 15 60
auth strong
users user1:CL:password1
proxy -p3128 -a
socks -p1080 -a

Mass Deployment

Use Ansible or a bash script to deploy 3proxy to multiple VPS instances:
1. List of servers in a file
2. SSH key for access
3. Installation and configuration script
4. Launch via ansible-playbook or parallel-ssh

Advanced Configuration

Environment Variables

Most tools support standard environment variables for proxies:
- HTTP_PROXY / http_proxy — proxy for HTTP requests
- HTTPS_PROXY / https_proxy — proxy for HTTPS requests
- NO_PROXY / no_proxy — list of exclusions (addresses that bypass the proxy)
- ALL_PROXY / all_proxy — proxy for all protocols

SSL and Self-Signed Certificates

Corporate proxies often use their own SSL certificates. To work through them, you need to:
1. Obtain the proxy's CA certificate from the administrator
2. Add it to the system certificate store
3. Or disable SSL verification (for testing only)

Authentication

Two main authentication methods are supported:

By username and password — standard HTTP Basic authentication. Credentials are sent with each request. URL format: http://user:pass@proxy_ip:port

By IP address (whitelist) — your IP is added to a whitelist. No credentials need to be sent.

Verifying Operation

After configuration, verify:
1. Perform a test request through the proxy
2. Confirm that the IP has changed
3. Check the connection speed
4. Ensure there are no DNS leaks

Troubleshooting

Proxy Not Connecting

• Check the address and port for correctness
• Ensure the firewall is not blocking the connection
• Verify proxy accessibility from your network

SSL Errors

• For corporate proxies, add the CA certificate
• For testing, temporarily disable SSL verification
• Update SSL libraries to the latest version

Authentication Errors

• Check the username and password
• Ensure the credentials format is correct
• Try URL-encoding special characters in the password

Best Practices

1. Use environment variables — for flexibility and security
2. Do not hardcode credentials — use environment variables or configuration files
3. Configure exclusions — do not proxy localhost and internal addresses
4. Document settings — in the project's README or team wiki
5. Test after changes — any configuration change requires verification

Conclusion

Proper proxy configuration ensures stable tool operation and connection security. Follow the recommendations in this guide and always verify functionality after setup.