ProxyTools overview

These tools should work on any system where Perl is provided.

Install Perl from http://www.activestate.com/, or (if you are on a Unix system) CPAN.

Get the latest release of the proxyTools package at sourceforge.
If you are willing to experiment, get the latest development versions (bugs and all!) of the individual files from sourceforge CVS. Follow the 'browse CVS' links into localProxy2 or proxyTools directory, then click the version number of the file you want, then click the download link. For example to get v1.70 of findProxy.pl, you end up here:http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/~checkout~/ proxytools/proxyTools/findProxy.pl?rev=1.70
Note that you should use a CVS client to get these, but it is possible to do it file by file using your web browser (see the FAQ for instructions).

If you got a distribution, unzip it to (say) c:\proxyTools.
If you got individual CVS files, just copy them on top of the old versions.

Open a command shell (command prompt, DOS shell, BASH shell etc.). Normally (Windows users) this is on your Start menu (programs, or programs|accessories).
cd /d c:\proxyTools

The tools provided cover the following areas:

An example to get you started

Having unzipped the package as above, you are ready to try one of the tools.
I'll use an old version of findProxy as an example, and to give you the flavor of these things (all the proxyTools behave in a similar manner).

perl findProxy.pl -h

You will see some help information:
Usage: findProxy [-options]
-f   Use a configuration file (command line options still override)
-c Set country to test proxies for (default UAE)
-i Ignore proxies on these ports (default [23, 12000])
-t Set timeout value (default 60 secs)
-p URL for the proxy to use to get the proxy list, or 'none' (default a UAE proxy)
-v Show program version
-h Print this message
-q Quiet - don't list the proxy list, and no beeps etc. (default noisy)
-C Use CONNECT to test each proxy in the list (default off)
-P Use CONNECT via this proxy Note: if no -p proxy is specified, the default for
-C is a UAE CONNECT proxy
-w On completion, wait for a GUI user to close the window (default no wait)
-n [start,end] Check a range of URLs (increment %COUNT% in the url)

Even more detail may be obtained from the embedded documentation:
perldoc findProxy.pl

Run findProxy, without a configuration file (specifying all parameters on the command line) like this (on one line):
perl findProxy.pl -c free -C -P http://CONNECT.proxy.address:8080/ http://www.angelfire.com/my/6waynes/checkedPublicProxies.html

In the UAE, you can leave out the CONNECT proxy specification because the code will add one for you. To handle this more easily, edit one of the configuration files with the information you want on the command line and run findProxy like this:
perl findProxy.pl -f configFileName.rc
Much easier, but the parameters are hidden.

Note: the above example is from an old version of findProxy - see the up to date help for findProxy here.

My old site is at: http://www.angelfire.com/my/6waynes but I'm downgrading it's use as a file repository because angelfire became quite unreliable for that purpose. The site will remain as the maintained site for information, but sourceforge is now the preferred site for proxyTools file distributions. Lists of proxies are all distributed as part of the proxyTools distribution (in hosts.zip) now.

wayne@nym.alias.net