Squid Proxy Hide System’s Real IP Address

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My squid proxy server is displaying system’s real IP address. I’ve a corporate password protected squid proxy server located at 202.54.1.2. My clients work from home or offices via A/DSL / cable connections. Squid should hide all system’s IP address, but it is forwarding and displaying the system’s (client computers internal) IP address. How do I configure squid to hide client’s real IP address?

Squid proxy server hide client IP address
Squid proxy server has a directive called forwarded_for. If set, Squid will include your system’s IP address or a name of the HTTP requests it forwards. By default it looks like
this:
X-Forwarded-For: 191.1.2.5
If you disable this (set to “off“), it will appear as
X-Forwarded-For: unknown
If set to “transparent“, Squid will not alter the X-Forwarded-For header in any way. If set to “delete“, Squid will delete the entire X-Forwarded-For header. If set to “truncate“, Squid will remove all existing X-Forwarded-For entries, and place the client IP as the sole entry.

Configuration

Open squid.conf file:
# vi squid.conf
Or (for squid version 3)
# vi /etc/squid3/squid.conf
Set forwarded_for to off:
forwarded_for off
OR set it to delete:
forwarded_for delete
Save and close the file.

Reload squid server

You need to restart the squid server, enter:
# /etc/init.d/squid restart
OR
# squid -k reconfigure
For squid version 3, run:
# squid3 -k reconfigure
Here are my options:

# Hide client ip #
forwarded_for delete
 
# Turn off via header #
via off
 
# Deny request for original source of a request
follow_x_forwarded_for deny all
 
# See below 
request_header_access X-Forwarded-For deny all

Say hello to request_header_access

By default, all headers are allowed (no anonymizing is performed for privacy). You can anonymize outgoing HTTP headers (i.e. headers sent by Squid to the following HTTP hop such as a cache peer or an origin server) to create the standard or paranoid experience. The following option are only tested on squid server version 3.x:

Squid standard anonymizer privacy experience

Set the following options in squid3.conf:

 request_header_access From deny all
 request_header_access Referer deny all
 request_header_access User-Agent deny all

Save and close the file. Do not forget to restart the squid3 as described above.

Squid standard privacy experience

Set the following options in squid3.conf:

  request_header_access Authorization allow all
  request_header_access Proxy-Authorization allow all
  request_header_access Cache-Control allow all
  request_header_access Content-Length allow all
  request_header_access Content-Type allow all
  request_header_access Date allow all
  request_header_access Host allow all
  request_header_access If-Modified-Since allow all
  request_header_access Pragma allow all
  request_header_access Accept allow all
  request_header_access Accept-Charset allow all
  request_header_access Accept-Encoding allow all
  request_header_access Accept-Language allow all
  request_header_access Connection allow all
  request_header_access All deny all

Save and close the file. Do not forget to restart the squid3 as described above.

Posted by: Vivek Gite

The author is the creator of nixCraft and a seasoned sysadmin, DevOps engineer, and a trainer for the Linux operating system/Unix shell scripting. Get the latest tutorials on SysAdmin, Linux/Unix and open source topics via RSS/XML feed or weekly email newsletter.

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9 comment

  1. another way of doing this is to just block most of the headers generated by squid , except for a few that are really necessary.

    Look for the “paranoid” header_access configuration in squid.conf

  3. Its better to use ‘squid -k reconfigure’ rather thant restarting squid as it wont have to stop the cache, so its almost instant.

  4. Agree with Protocol, I prefer to use ‘squid -k reconfigure’, fast and much better than restarting squid

  5. I’m also trying to hide my WAN ip. When I go to whatismyip.com, it still shows my WAN IP no matter what. Any additional ideas to try?

    I run squid on the same local machine I use to browse the web. So squid runs on 127.0.0.1:3128

    forwarded_for off

    request_header_access Allow allow all
    request_header_access Authorization allow all
    request_header_access WWW-Authenticate allow all
    request_header_access Proxy-Authorization allow all
    request_header_access Proxy-Authenticate allow all
    request_header_access Cache-Control allow all
    request_header_access Content-Encoding allow all
    request_header_access Content-Length allow all
    request_header_access Content-Type allow all
    request_header_access Date allow all
    request_header_access Expires allow all
    request_header_access Host allow all
    request_header_access If-Modified-Since allow all
    request_header_access Last-Modified allow all
    request_header_access Location allow all
    request_header_access Pragma allow all
    request_header_access Accept allow all
    request_header_access Accept-Charset allow all
    request_header_access Accept-Encoding allow all
    request_header_access Accept-Language allow all
    request_header_access Content-Language allow all
    request_header_access Mime-Version allow all
    request_header_access Retry-After allow all
    request_header_access Title allow all
    request_header_access Connection allow all
    request_header_access Proxy-Connection allow all
    request_header_access All deny all

  6. This ip is not sent in the http header, it comes from the ip-connection direct and cannot be hidden;

  8. I have the below mentioned setup:

    User Machine>>>>>>Proxy Server>>>>>Firewall>>>>Internet
    a.a.a.a b.b.b.b

    When i use the Proxy on Agent Machine traffic to Firewall hits from Proxy Public IP. I want the machine Local IP to Hit the Firewall instead of Proxy IP required for Compliance . Can this be achievable if Yes then what needs to be changed in the Squid Configuration

  9. If you do not want header “X-Forwarded-For: unknown” at all to use proxy anonymously use:

    forwarded_for delete

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