EC2 Proxies

Read short introduction here: Create free HTTPS/SOCKS5 proxy servers using AWS Free Tier EC2 instances automatically on demand within Terraform and simple HTTP API.

Also see related info:

• awslambdaproxy - An AWS Lambda powered HTTP/SOCKS web proxy
• Proxy Your Traffic With AWS Lambda
• How to Setup a Free Proxy Server on Amazon EC2 / tinyproxy

Tools:

• Terraform to automatically create/install software/destroy EC2 instances
• Proxy server - Goproxy
• Ruby Sinatra gem for HTTP API to manage proxy instances (optional)
• Ubuntu 16.04 server
• Systemd to convert goproxy process to the system daemon service

Installation

• Clone the repo
• Install CLI Terraform and run $ terraform init inside of project directory.
• For HTTP API (optionally): install ruby (if you don't have it yet. Minimal supported version is 2.3), install bundler gem $ gem install bundler and then run $ bundle install inside of project directory.

Configuration

1) Provide your AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY credentials to manage EC2 instances. It is good practice to have separate user roles with restricted permissions for different projects.

Check here how to create a new AWS user role and copy credentials. You'll need a user role with AmazonEC2FullAccess permission. Then create file terraform.tfvars (inside of project directory) and put there AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY, example:

AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID="78J347ZVBPY5R4EPXYGQ"
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY="WvrNVw38ZJT8pbMV6Vy75RQuLoBdgW6ijtRLMgdt"

2) Generate SSH key pair for EC2 instances and save it to the .ssh subfolder: $ ssh-keygen -f .ssh/ec2_key -N ''

Settings

All default settings located in the config.tf file. If you want to change the value of variable, don't edit config.tf file, instead put your configuration to the terreform.tfvars file (create this file if it doesn't exists). Use format VARIABLE_NAME="value" inside of terreform.tfvars file.

You'll probably want to tweak following settings:

• AWS_INSTANCES_COUNT - the number of proxy servers to create. Default is 5. You can set it up to 20.
• AWS_DEFAULT_REGION - region of instances (proxy servers) where they will be created. Default is us-east-1. Check available regions here. Keep in mind that AWS_INSTANCE_AMI should match AWS_DEFAULT_REGION. You can check all Ubuntu 16.04 server AMI's here.
• PROXY_TYPE - type of proxy server. Default is socks (socks5). If you need HTTP/HTTPS anonymous proxy instead, set variable to http.
• PROXY_PORT - port of proxy server. Default is 46642.
• PROXY_USER and PROXY_PASSWORD - set these variables if you want proxy server use authorization. Defaut is empty (proxy without authorization).

Usage

Command line

apply

Command $ terraform apply will create EC2 instances and make instances setup (install and run goproxy server). From output you'll get IP addresses of created instances. Example:

$ terraform apply
...

Apply complete! Resources: 7 added, 0 changed, 0 destroyed.

Outputs:

instances = [
    54.225.911.634,
    31.207.37.49,
    53.235.228.205,
    52.31.233.217,
    35.213.244.142
]

Use these IP addresses to connect to proxy servers (proxy type, port and user/password settings were applied from config.tf, see Settings above).

output

Command $ terraform output will print IP addresses of created instances. Example:

$ terraform output

instances = [
    54.225.911.634,
    31.207.37.49,
    53.235.228.205,
    52.31.233.217,
    35.213.244.142
]

destroy

Command $ terraform destroy will destroy all created instances. Example:

$ terraform destroy
...

aws_instance.ProxyNode[4]: Destruction complete after 57s
aws_instance.ProxyNode[0]: Destruction complete after 57s
aws_instance.ProxyNode[3]: Destruction complete after 57s
aws_instance.ProxyNode[2]: Destruction complete after 57s
aws_instance.ProxyNode[1]: Destruction complete after 57s
aws_security_group.ec2_proxies_sg: Destroying... (ID: sg-2543a86e)
aws_key_pair.ec2_key: Destroying... (ID: ec2_key)
aws_key_pair.ec2_key: Destruction complete after 2s
aws_security_group.ec2_proxies_sg: Destruction complete after 2s

Destroy complete! Resources: 7 destroyed.

HTTP API

First, start the API server: $ RACK_ENV=production bundle exec ruby app.rb. API will be available on http://localhost:4567.

POST /api/v1/apply

Make post request /api/v1/apply to create proxy servers. Configuration in config.tf will be used to create instances.

You can pass additional parameters in request body to apply custom settings: aws_instances_count, proxy_type, proxy_port, proxy_user and proxy_password.

Example:

$ curl -X POST http://localhost:4567/api/v1/apply -d 'proxy_type=http&proxy_port=5555&aws_instances_count=3&proxy_user=admin&proxy_password=123456'

{
  "status": "Ok",
  "message": "Successfully performed apply action",
  "data": {
    "instances": [
      "57.94.21.138",
      "28.206.169.144",
      "44.240.61.89"
    ]
  }
}

GET /api/v1/instances_list

Make get request /api/v1/instances_list to get IP addresses of created proxy servers. Example:

$ curl -X GET http://localhost:4567/api/v1/instances_list

{
  "status": "Ok",
  "message": "Running 3 instances",
  "data": {
    "instances": [
      "57.94.21.138",
      "28.206.169.144",
      "44.240.61.89"
    ]
  }
}

POST /api/v1/destroy

Make post request /api/v1/destroy to destroy all proxy servers. Example:

$ curl -X POST http://localhost:4567/api/v1/destroy

{
  "status": "Ok",
  "message": "Successfully performed destroy action"
}