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I’m in country A and I want to access a website that blocks visitors from A (but allows visitors from country B).

Technology

I’m looking for a tool/solution that I can install on my shared webhosting account (servers in B). I don’t want to use a third-party service.

Caveat: As it’s only shared hosting, I don’t have admin access. I can compile/install only in my home directory (I have SSH access.).

Using dynamic/private ports isn’t possible with my current hoster. But if there is no solution that works without port, please feel free to recommend solutions that need a port.

I don’t have a unique IPv4 IP address. I can add an IPv6 IP address to my domain, though.

Features

I’m not sure what kind of solution is possible/appropriate. Proxy? VPN? SSH tunneling? Something else? (I don’t have any experience.)

It should work with using a graphical browser (e.g., Firefox).

Everything on the website (HTML, files, Adobe Flash, JavaScript) should go through my server’s connection, as well as anything I send (e.g., sending a message from a contact form).

All other traffic (e.g., SMTP, XMPP) should still go through my own connection.

It should be possible to easily enable/disable it.

I want to be the only user. So it should be possible to restrict access somehow.

Formal requirements

  • Everything involved must be FLOSS.
  • Everything involved must be self-hosted, no reliance on any other online service.
  • It must run natively on GNU/Linux.
  • It must not require admin rights (no sudo).
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  • I’m not sure which tag(s) to add. Is web-server appropriate? web-apps doesn’t seem to be right because it might also be a server-side solution (via SSH).
    – unor
    Commented Mar 29, 2014 at 19:33
  • So you wish to block only web access to Country A, excluding you?
    – gabrieloliveira
    Commented Mar 30, 2014 at 0:37
  • @gabrieloliveira: I don’t want to block anything. I’m a mere visitor of a website not under my control, but this site blocks all IPs from specific countries. So I want to use my server (which is hosted in an unblocked country) to access (and use!) this site.
    – unor
    Commented Mar 30, 2014 at 0:46
  • Ok, now I understand. I made this with proxy, but I believe than this site I have to recommend a specific software. I will check what I used when I made this and post a answer.
    – gabrieloliveira
    Commented Mar 30, 2014 at 0:56
  • Did you consider VPN as a solution?
    – Bernhard
    Commented Mar 30, 2014 at 14:22

1 Answer 1

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However, if you have SSH access, why not just use putty(if you run windows), or ssh tunneling on your own system to set up a ssh tunnel, and use your web browser through that? It won't need any software on your server side (that you don't have already) and is simple to set up.

Alternately you're basically looking for a web proxy, and one that runs on php - you go to the website, pop in your url, and it passes it through for you.

I've not tried it for pages that need a login, but I've used glype through daveproxy for ages when I needed a site my ISP (accidentally) blocked. If you're running your own instance, you it would be less of an issue since you can trust your proxy. It will work on a rediculously basic shared hosting account I believe.

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  • I wasn’t aware that a SSH tunnel would work without any additional software and that it would work just like that in browsers. I’ll give it a try. -- Regarding Web proxy: Such a tool sounds good (besides PHP, it could also use Perl, Python, Ruby etc., i.e., anything that is available natively for GNU/Linux), however, Glype in particular doesn’t seem to be FLOSS (it’s only "Free for personal use").
    – unor
    Commented Mar 30, 2014 at 16:41
  • I've not had experience with anything else in that class of software. I do think using ssh tunneling is the smart answer here, if you have ssh access, and a php based web proxy otherwise. If you can run software without being a admin I have some more ideas
    – Journeyman Geek
    Commented Mar 31, 2014 at 7:12

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