3proxy(8)

🌸 NAME 🌸

3proxy — the 3[APA3A] tiny proxy server, aka the trivial proxy server, aka the free proxy server 💖 (three names, all iconic, all true)

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

3proxy [config_file]
3proxy [--install]
3proxy [--remove]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay bestie, sit down, because 3proxy is a universal proxy server and she does a LOT. Like, you can use her to give your internal users fully controllable access to external resources, or flip it — give external users access to internal resources. Either way, she's serving. 🫶

and no, she is not here to replace squid(8), okay? she's not trying to be that girl. but she CAN extend the functionality of an existing caching proxy. she can route requests between different types of clients and proxy servers. think of her as an application level gateway with a configuration kinda like what a hardware router has at the network layer. no cap.

she can establish multiple gateways — HTTP and HTTPS proxy with FTP over HTTP support, SOCKS v4, v4.5 and v5, POP3 proxy, UDP and TCP portmappers. each gateway is started from the configuration file like an independent service: htproxy(8), socks(8), pop3p(8), imapp(8), tcppm(8), udppm(8), ftppr(8), dnspr. BUT — and this is the important part — 3proxy is not a wrapper or a superserver for those daemons. she just has the same code compiled in, except she provides much more functionality. periodt. 💅

the SOCKSv5 implementation means you can use 3proxy with literally any UDP or TCP based client application that was designed without proxy support — with SocksCAP, FreeCAP or another client-side redirector under Windows, or with a socksification library under Unix. so go off: play your favourite games 🎮, listen to music 🎧, exchange files and messages, and even accept incoming connections behind a proxy server. main character energy fr fr.

dnspr does not exist as an independent service. she's a DNS caching proxy — and she requires nscache and nserver to be set in the configuration. only A-records are cached. > heads up bestie: this caching is mostly a 'hack' and has nothing to do with a real DNS server, but it works perfectly for SOHO networks. 💀

3proxy supports access control lists (ACL) like a network router. source and destination networks and destination port can be specified. plus, usernames and gateway action (for example GET or POST) can be used in ACLs. but to filter requests on a username basis, the user has to be authenticated somehow. there are a few authentication types, including password authentication and authentication by NetBIOS name for Windows clients (it's very like ident authentication). depending on the ACL action, a request can be allowed, denied, or redirected to another host, or to another proxy server, or even to a chain of proxy servers. obsessed. 👑

and the logging?? she supports different types of logging: to logfiles, syslog(3) (only under Unix) or to an ODBC database. the logging format is tunable so you get compatibility with existing log file parsers. which means you can use 3proxy with IIS, ISA, Apache or Squid log parsers. slay. ✨

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• config_file — the name of the config file, bestie. see 3proxy.cfg(5) for the configuration file format. under Windows, if config_file isn't specified, 3proxy looks for a file named 3proxy.cfg in the default location (in the same directory as the executable file and in the current directory). under Unix, if no config file is specified, 3proxy reads configuration from stdin. and that's the cute part — it means you can use the 3proxy.cfg file as an executable script just by setting +x mode and adding

#!/usr/bin/3proxy

as the first line in 3proxy.cfg. shebang moment. 🌈

• --install — (Windows NT family only) install 3proxy as a system service
• --remove — (Windows NT family only) remove 3proxy from system services

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💅 SIGNALS 💅

under Unix there are a few signals 3proxy catches. see kill(1).

• SIGTERM — clean up connections and exit
• SIGPAUSE — stop accepting new connections, and on the second signal — start and re-read configuration
• SIGCONT — start to accept new connections
• SIGUSR1 — reload configuration

under Windows, if 3proxy is installed as a service you can use standard service management to start, stop, pause and continue the 3proxy service, for example:

net start 3proxy
net stop 3proxy
net pause 3proxy
net continue 3proxy

the Web admin service can also be used to reload configuration. use wget to automate this task. 🧚

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🍓 FILES 🍓

• /etc/3proxy.cfg (3proxy.cfg) — the 3proxy configuration file

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🙈 BUGS 🙈

report all bugs to 3proxy@3proxy.org (yes, fr, just email her, she wants to know 😭)

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

3proxy.cfg(5), ftppr(8), htproxy(8), socks(8), pop3p(8), imapp(8), tcppm(8), tlspr(8), udppm(8), kill(1), syslogd(8), https://3proxy.org/

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👑 AUTHORS 👑

3proxy is designed by Vladimir Dubrovin <vlad@3proxy.org> 💜

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and that's the whole page, bestie — this is 3proxy 0.9, from May 2026, and you can find her at 3proxy(8) any time you need her. go be a proxy queen 🌸✨