Proxy server with user management and can send user ID via headers

Question

I'm looking to emulate a small subset of the behavior of an authentication system our client uses. The real system is not available for us to run in our development environment, and the subset we need is small.

The features we need to emulate are:

• A proxy server
• Maintaining a database of users
• Authenticating users
• Forwarding an authenticated user's ID to our application (behind the proxy) via a header with a particular name

For our internal usage in emulating this, I am also looking for the following:

• Gratis
• Creation and management of users through a web interface
• Runs on Windows or Linux

Bonus points if an external user can request an account and then have another user approve it. (This would be useful for training purposes.) More bonus points if it can do that and a single person (who I imagine would be identified as some kind of admin in the system) can easily just force create a few users (for our testing) through the web interface.

I do not expect we will put a heavy load on the system, so scale is not really a concern. It's also fine if a combination of tools will suit our needs (like Apache plus a module or something).

Trying to search for this odd set of requirements did not turn up obvious solutions.

Answer 1

WinGate can do most of this, all except creation of users via a web interface, however it can do user creation via a remote interface (its management application).

WinGate policy framework allows all sorts of modification of requests, including embedding data into http requests.

It has a free license enabling 3 concurrent users (we are looking to soon increase this to 10) to access the proxy, or if you need more features or users you can upgrade from there.

Paid versions can also use AD integration, so that user creation would be managed via an Active Directory.

Disclaimer: I work for Qbik, who are the authors of WinGate.