在PHP中使用带有套接字的代理

Question

I have some PHP code in which XML data is being passed between server and client using sockets. socket_create( AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, SOL_TCP ), socket_read(), socket_write() are the functions being used to pass XML and not HTTP requests.

Now if I want to use a proxy for client to use to connect through to the server, how can I do that in PHP?

I am new to sockets and from what I have gathered, there exists this library https://github.com/clue/php-socks which I don't fully understand right now but the idea is to setup the middleman using the same library which is essentially the proxy in this case. How would I go about using a SOCKS4/5 proxy obtained from https://www.socks-proxy.net/ or paid ones? Is the above mentioned library the only option? Feels like PHP should have something built in already.

Please advice.

Answer 1

This should be a comment, but it's a bit long.

Feels like PHP should have something built in already

I'm struggling to imagine why it should. PHP is a language designed for serverside web development. Proxies are a client side technology. Having said that the curl extension has comprehensive support for HTTP proxies.

There is no single proxy protocol. Certainly SOCKS and HTTP are the most visible protocols for proxies but there are lots more. Was there a specific reason for choosing SOCKS?

If it were me I would just setup transparent port forwarding using iptables (Linux) or a socat instance or haproxy (Unix, MSWindows).