cloudless-proxy

Clone, configure, deploy. A disposable HTTP proxy with a fresh IP in under a minute.

This is a standalone wrapper around terraform-aws-ec2-proxy -- the Terraform module that provisions a Squid forward proxy on EC2. If you want to embed the module in a larger infrastructure stack, use the module directly. If you just want a proxy right now, clone this repo.

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/ql4b/cloudless-proxy.git
cd cloudless-proxy
cp .env.example .env   # edit with your AWS profile/region
source activate
proxy up
eval $(proxy env)
curl http://httpbin.org/ip   # shows the proxy's IP

Prerequisites

• Terraform >= 1.12 installed (path configured in .env via TERRAFORM_BIN)
• AWS credentials configured (profile, env vars, or IAM role)
• AWS account with a default VPC

Commands

Command	Description
proxy up	Provision the proxy instance
proxy down	Destroy the instance
proxy recreate	Terminate + reprovision for a fresh IP
proxy status	Show instance state, IP, and proxy URL
proxy test	Verify the proxy is responding
proxy env	Print proxy environment variables for export

Typical workflow

source activate          # load .env, add bin/ to PATH
proxy up                 # deploy
eval $(proxy env)        # set HTTP_PROXY/HTTPS_PROXY in current shell
# ... do your work ...
proxy down               # destroy when done

Get a new IP

proxy recreate           # terminates current instance, deploys a fresh one
eval $(proxy env)        # pick up the new IP

Configuration

Copy .env.example to .env and adjust:

AWS_PROFILE=default          # your named AWS CLI profile
AWS_REGION=us-east-1         # region to deploy in
NAMESPACE=myorg              # naming prefix
NAME=proxy                   # resource name

TERRAFORM_VERSION="v1.12.2"
TERRAFORM_BIN="/usr/local/bin/terraform-$TERRAFORM_VERSION"

Optional variables

Set these in .env or pass at runtime:

TF_VAR_spot=false            # use on-demand instead of spot
TF_VAR_ttl_hours=2           # auto-terminate after 2 hours
TF_VAR_instance_type=t4g.micro  # larger instance if needed
TF_VAR_allowed_cidrs='["203.0.113.0/24"]'  # explicit CIDRs (default: auto-detect your IP)

Region Switching

The proxy is stateless -- switching region means a full redeploy:

# edit AWS_REGION in .env, then:
source activate
proxy down    # destroy in old region
proxy up      # provision in new region

How It Works

cloudless-proxy/
├── .env.example    # configuration template
├── activate        # shell activation script (loads .env, adds bin/ to PATH)
├── bin/proxy       # CLI wrapper (up/down/recreate/status/test/env)
├── tf              # terraform wrapper (reads .env, runs terraform in infra/)
└── infra/          # Terraform config (calls terraform-aws-ec2-proxy module)

• activate loads your .env and puts bin/ and the repo root on $PATH
• proxy is a bash script that wraps tf apply/tf destroy with ergonomic subcommands
• tf is a thin wrapper that sources .env and calls terraform with -chdir=infra/
• infra/ contains the Terraform configuration that calls the ql4b/ec2-proxy/aws module from the Terraform Registry

What You Get

• EC2 spot instance (t4g.nano ARM64, Amazon Linux 2023)
• Squid HTTP proxy on port 8888
• Security group locked to your IP (auto-detected)
• IMDSv2 enforced, encrypted EBS, no SSH
• SSM access for debugging (aws ssm start-session)
• Optional TTL auto-termination

Cost

~$0.0016/hour for t4g.nano spot in us-east-1. Typical usage (deploy for an hour, destroy) costs less than a cent.

License

Apache 2.0