How to connect a Socket server via HTTP proxy

Question

I have a piece of code to connect to a Socket server, and it works fine.

Socket socket = new Socket();
socket.connect(new InetSocketAddress(address, port));
         


        

Answer 1

As per Wikipedia on HTTP tunneling, the important thing about a HTTP proxy is that it proxies the HTTP protocol.

So if you have a server and a client and wish them to communicate through a HTTP proxy then both the server and client must be modified to communicate the HTTP protocol.

Alternatively you need additional software that can implement a VPN over HTTP, such as OpenVPN.

Edit: An exception is that some HTTP proxy servers support and have enabled a method called HTTP CONNECT which after a basic setup process over HTTP permits the creation and routing of a regular TCP socket. This permits connectivity to applications without the hard work of full conversion to HTTP tunneling. A good example of this is MSN Messenger. However as the Wikipedia articles notes this feature is often disabled, or not even supported for security reasons.