A lot of people in networking know what a proxy is. In computing, a proxy is a middleman system that retrieves information from the web or another computer and then sends it back to the station that initially made the inquiry. In networking, the station in the IT closet usually handles outgoing traffic, effectively behaving as a proxy and a hardware firewall. This is good for large networks, but sometimes other solutions are needed.
A home office might need a proxy on a budget. The terminal in a Linux system can be used to set up a software proxy. Similar solutions exist for Macintosh and Windows PCs if the correct software is installed. The point of a terminal proxy is that it allows for the insertion of very specific commands with variables being represented as single letters or contracted words.
These typed commands are how a terminal proxy is established, and it is like sending instructions through a black box on your own machine which conceals the identity of your computer before accessing the broader web. In a network, outgoing requests might be sent to a network terminal and a firewall device that blocks outgoing and incoming traffic unless they meet the right criterion. A software can mimic a network demilitarized zone and give greater privacy to the web surfer.
A proxy can use encryption or not. Services require processing power, and the main disadvantage of using software on a more generalized machine is that it consumes processing power that would be devoted to other tasks. If the load is modest, then this could be the most economical solution.
In truth, a proxy can do a lot of services for a network. In essence, this is what the station in the IT closet does. It monitors outgoing requests and data flowing within the network and determines if it meets the rules set by the administrators. A proxy is a gatekeeper as well as a privacy fence, and it can prevent employees or even household children from accessing a wide variety of sites.
A terminal proxy can be easy and free to set up if not many rules are required, or it can be a complex solution using networking software and hardware. It pays to ask experts on what type of solutions are possible. They can set up something similar using a bash terminal or can offer a third-party package where a supercomputer in a commercial lab offers remote network services. Just ask and discover the many, many options.
