[proxyTools-announce] new proxyTools/localProxy release

[wayne <wa...@ny...>]

Hi all,

The latest proxyTools/localProxy package is proxyTools-2002-02-07.zip.
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/proxytools/proxyTools-2002-02-07.zip

Highlights (compared to the last package release):

An 'Anonymous' button allows switching of the service listening 
on the default HTTP proxy port 10080. At the moment it's just 
switching your browsing between non-anonymous and anonymous.

The control 'port' field allows a service (host:port) now, so the 
GUI can control an LP on a remote computer. Testing not yet done 
here, but fixes should be simple.

All services, commStrats, and layer 0 and layer 1 proxies in 
localProxy can be enabled/disabled with one click. This means that 
it's easy to check out a single commStrat and/or proxy if it's in the 
build. One might do things like this to understand what's happening 
(disable everything, and then enable one thing at a time), 
or to compare with something like HTTPort, for example (disable 
everything, then reenable 10080, commStrat 1, layer0 host m, and 
layer 1 host n, where 'm' is the 'proxy you want to bypass' and 
'n' is the remote proxy to use.

'Autoconfiguration' should be able to analyze the network for 
anyone, anywhere and create a user profile which works in localProxy.
At the minimum, it should provide a file (master.xml) which could 
be posted for assistance (obfuscate the addresses if you wish, but 
not too much). The AutoConfigure option also tests the user specified 
proxies in the background and merges the results in to the user's 
configuration. AutoConfigure accepts a proxy 'hint' string optionally 
entered by the user in to the GUI, to tell it where the ISP's 
proxies are (and the subnets accessible to LP).

A new field on the GUI allows the user to specify services which are 
not to be built by LP when it's started. Much the same as removing 
or disabling them in the user configuration file.

Starting LP is a bit more colorful (and hopefully the GUI is a bit 
more responsive). 'Start services' flashes gray/orange when the GUI 
is waiting for the LP back end to initialize and start listening for 
commands from the GUI on the network. It then flashes orange/green 
until the back end has finished it's build and tested the layer 0 
proxies. Solid green after that. During much of this time, the GUI 
is fully accessible (but please avoid pressing buttons during this 
stage!).

'Save running configuration' now also saves a localInfo-saved.xml 
file which contains those proxies which failed connect tests. This 
enables the user to run statProxy tests and update info about those 
proxies so that they get treated more carefully at the next build.
I'll be making this happen in the background in future.

Documentation is substantially improved, but it will still confuse 
you if you read too much :-). 
Start at LocalProxy_manual.html (to be renamed to readme.html in 
newer versions).

A new proxy tool 'cleanHosts.pl' has been added. It's just to remove 
some of the disabled proxies from hosts.xml. In future, it will 
probably do other forms of maintenance on that proxy database.
All the tools have been updated:
statProxy got a Socks test, and the reference page changed from 
www.sex.com to www.panix.com.
findProxy got a new format added.
mergeHosts doesn't update proxies inside a (known) firewall unless 
the tests were done from inside.
extractHosts got a full repertoire of query spec. parameters to allow 
comprehensive search and extract from the hosts database.

Last time, I said:
'I seem to be just about finished adding new concepts to this thing, 
and I now find I'm looking more at fixing existing stuff and making 
it easier to use. I hope that boring trend does not continue ... :-)'
That has continued, but it's not so bad. I'm using the infrastructure 
I coded before to add new things, rather than adding new infrastructure 
:-)

-wayne