proxy-agent

What is proxy-agent?

The proxy-agent npm package is a module that provides an HTTP(s) proxy Agent which can be used to proxy HTTP and HTTPS requests through a specified proxy server. This is useful in scenarios where network requests need to be routed through a proxy for reasons such as security, privacy, or circumventing network restrictions.

What are proxy-agent's main functionalities?

Creating an HTTP proxy agent

This feature allows you to create an HTTP proxy agent that will route HTTP requests through the specified proxy server.

const ProxyAgent = require('proxy-agent');
const agent = new ProxyAgent('http://proxy-server.com:8080');
const http = require('http');

const requestOptions = {
  host: 'example.com',
  port: 80,
  path: '/',
  agent: agent
};

http.get(requestOptions, (res) => {
  console.log(`Got response: ${res.statusCode}`);
});

Creating an HTTPS proxy agent

This feature allows you to create an HTTPS proxy agent that will route HTTPS requests through the specified proxy server using TLS/SSL encryption.

const ProxyAgent = require('proxy-agent');
const agent = new ProxyAgent('https://proxy-server.com:443');
const https = require('https');

const requestOptions = {
  host: 'example.com',
  port: 443,
  path: '/',
  agent: agent
};

https.get(requestOptions, (res) => {
  console.log(`Got response: ${res.statusCode}`);
});

Support for different proxy protocols

The proxy-agent package supports various proxy protocols including HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS, and PAC (Proxy Auto-Config).

const ProxyAgent = require('proxy-agent');

const httpAgent = new ProxyAgent('http://proxy-server.com:8080');
const httpsAgent = new ProxyAgent('https://proxy-server.com:443');
const socksAgent = new ProxyAgent('socks://proxy-server.com:1080');
const pacAgent = new ProxyAgent('pac+http://proxy-server.com/proxy.pac');

// Use the appropriate agent for the request protocol

Other packages similar to proxy-agent

http-proxy-agent

This package provides an HTTP agent to proxy HTTP requests. It is similar to proxy-agent but is limited to HTTP protocol only, whereas proxy-agent supports multiple protocols.

https-proxy-agent

This package provides an HTTPS agent to proxy HTTPS requests. Like http-proxy-agent, it is protocol-specific and does not offer the multi-protocol support that proxy-agent does.

socks-proxy-agent

This package is designed to provide an agent that proxies through a SOCKS proxy. It is specifically tailored for SOCKS protocol, unlike proxy-agent which handles SOCKS along with other protocols.

pac-proxy-agent

This package provides a proxy agent that can use a PAC file to determine the appropriate proxy for a given URL. It is focused on PAC file support, which is just one of the features available in proxy-agent.

README

proxy-agent

Maps proxy protocols to http.Agent implementations

This module provides an http.Agent implementation which automatically uses proxy servers based off of the various proxy-related environment variables (HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY and NO_PROXY among others).

Which proxy is used for each HTTP request is determined by the proxy-from-env module, so check its documentation for instructions on configuring your environment variables.

An LRU cache is used so that http.Agent instances are transparently re-used for subsequent HTTP requests to the same proxy server.

The currently implemented protocol mappings are listed in the table below:

Protocol	Proxy Agent for http requests	Proxy Agent for https requests	Example
http	http-proxy-agent	https-proxy-agent	http://proxy-server-over-tcp.com:3128
https	http-proxy-agent	https-proxy-agent	https://proxy-server-over-tls.com:3129
socks(v5)	socks-proxy-agent	socks-proxy-agent	socks://username:[e-mail]:9050 (username & password are optional)
socks5	socks-proxy-agent	socks-proxy-agent	socks5://username:[e-mail]:9050 (username & password are optional)
socks4	socks-proxy-agent	socks-proxy-agent	socks4://some-socks-proxy.com:9050
pac-*	pac-proxy-agent	pac-proxy-agent	pac+http://www.example.com/proxy.pac

Example

import * as https from 'https';
import { ProxyAgent } from 'proxy-agent';

// The correct proxy `Agent` implementation to use will be determined
// via the `http_proxy` / `https_proxy` / `no_proxy` / etc. env vars
const agent = new ProxyAgent();

// The rest works just like any other normal HTTP request
https.get('https://jsonip.com', { agent }, (res) => {
  console.log(res.statusCode, res.headers);
  res.pipe(process.stdout);
});

API

new ProxyAgent(options?: ProxyAgentOptions)

Creates an http.Agent instance which relies on the various proxy-related environment variables. An LRU cache is used, so the same http.Agent instance will be returned if identical args are passed in.

License

(The MIT License)

Copyright (c) 2013 Nathan Rajlich <[e-mail]>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.