backq

A reverse proxy utilizing 0MQ to access HTTP resources behind a firewall.

TODO:

Correlation of responses
More tests
Better logging

Build

Simply run:

make

Or to run some basic tests run:

make test

You will need Golang

Overview

How To

Arguments for bqpublic

$ bin/bqpublic --help
usage: bqpublic --request_port=REQUEST_PORT --reply_port=REPLY_PORT --http_port=HTTP_PORT [<flags>]

Flags:
  --help                       Show context-sensitive help (also try --help-long and --help-man).
  --request_port=REQUEST_PORT  The 0MQ port for publishing requests to bqprivate, e.g. a value of 20000 means binding to 'tcp://*:20000'
  --reply_port=REPLY_PORT      The 0MQ port for listening for replies from bqprivate
  --http_port=HTTP_PORT        The HTTP Port to listen on
  --certpath=CERTPATH          If set, this will Enable SSL and set the Cert Path
  --keypath=KEYPATH            If set, this will Enable SSL and set the Key Path
  --gen_ssl                    If set, this will automatically create cert.pem and key.pem and enable SSL

Arguments for bqprivate

$ bin/bqprivate --help
usage: bqprivate --request_port=REQUEST_PORT --reply_port=REPLY_PORT --public_host=PUBLIC_HOST [<flags>]

Flags:
  --help                       Show context-sensitive help (also try --help-long and --help-man).
  --request_port=REQUEST_PORT  The 0MQ port for publishing requests to bqprivate, e.g. a value of 20000 means binding to 'tcp://*:20000'
  --reply_port=REPLY_PORT      The 0MQ port for listening for replies from bqprivate
  --public_host=PUBLIC_HOST    The host name or IP address of the bqpublic server

Step 1, Build the Binaries

To just build everything, run:

make all

from the above step

Step 2, Run a Public Server

On a publicly accessible server, run the "bqpublic" binary specifying the port for the 0mq publish socket, the 0mq reply socket and the HTTP report to listen for requests on. As in:

./bin/bqpublic --request_port=20000 --reply_port=30000 --http_port=9099 --gen_ssl

The public server will open 3 sockets to facilitate these connections. Make sure they are all accessible. If you specify --gen_ssl the program will generate a self signed cert.pem and key.pem in the current path. These can also be specified

Step 3, Run a Private Proxy

From a privately accessible server (e.g. inside a network), run the "bqprivate" binary specifying the port for the 0mq subscribe socket, the 0mq request socket and the public host to connect to (can be hostname or IP address). As in:

./bin/bqprivate --request_port=20000 --reply_port=30000 --public_host=public-server

You'll want this binary to run from the place that you want all of your HTTP requests to originate from.

Step 4, cURL it Out!

With bqpublic and bqprivate running, do something like:

curl -vvv -H 'Host: google.com' http://public-server:9099/webhp?q=golang

You should get the results as-if the private server made the request. Note that the host header will be passed along and bqprivate will reply back (on port 30000 in our example) the JSON payload of a request to "http://google.com/webhp?q=golang".

What is this good for?

Querying APIs or websites that are behind a firewall but which you want to access remotely. Example:

Your router's web API interface at home is on: 192.168.1.1
You have a host entry in your home computer for "router" to resolve to 192.168.1.1
You run bqpublic on an AWS instance with a hostname of "aws-server"
You run bqprivate on your home computer
You update your work computer to have a host entry of "router" that resolves to the IP of "aws-server"
You browse to http://aws-server/ from work but will get the results of http://router as if your computer at home made the request!

... all to avoid actually opening any ports or changing any connection initialization rules.

A little silly, admittedly.

xeb/backq