Reverse Proxy

The conventional proxy server (described in the preceding section) acts as a proxy for outgoing Internet requests. Another form of proxy server known as a reverse proxy receives requests from external sources and forwards them to the internal network. A reverse proxy offers the same caching and content filtering features provided by a conventional proxy server. Since reverse proxies are primarily used with computers offering services on the Internet, the security concerns are particularly important.

A reverse proxy system hides the details of the computer that is actually fulfilling the client’s request. The reverse proxy can also improve performance by caching large files or frequently accessed pages. Reverse proxies are also sometimes used as a form of load balancing. For instance, a reverse proxy could receive requests under a single web address and then distribute the workload to servers upstream.