Proxy Servers vs IP Masquerade

[dogbert at clue4all.net (Brian Conway)]

> On a tangential topic, why would anyone want to use proxy services when
> IP masquerading was available?

Customization.  If you want to limit the internet access a machine is
given, it's a helluva lot easier to do so with a proxy, than attempting to
go in and work with masquerading in such a manner.  The purpose of
masquerading is generally to allow a machine to think it's directly
connected to the internet and have it interact in such a manner.  While
masquerading is generally a better alternative to a proxy server if this
is your purpose, there is a still a purpose, if a little bit different,
for a proxy server.  I know this is a weak argument, as I personally
masquerade both my home and portions of the network at my job, but I
wanted to stand up for proxy servers in that they do have _some_ purpose
and are not completely obsolete (yet).

Brian Conway
dogbert at clue4all.net


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