How does WinGate work?

WinGate is a proxy server, or intermediary. The normal meaning of the word proxy is someone who does something on behalf of someone else, e.g. voting by proxy. The Internet use of the word has the same meaning but refers to a software program. WinGate does things on behalf of other software programs. Specifically WinGate makes Internet requests to Internet servers on behalf of Internet clients. It is important to remember that WinGate does the proxy work, not GateKeeper.

The typical scenario:

A Web browser accessing the Internet through a proxy server. In this case, the Web browser has been configured to work through a proxy server. In normal cases this appears transparent to the user, as though the browser were communicating directly with a web server (which it is not).

1. A Web client connects to WinGate

2. The client sends a proxy-request to WinGate (e.g ‘get me this URL’)

3. WinGate interprets the request, and if it is allowed connects to the server specified in the request

4. WinGate makes a modified request to the Web server, as if WinGate were the web browser itself.

5. The server sends the file to WinGate.

6. WinGate passes the file to the Web browser

The other proxies in WinGate work in much the same way; the client submits a request, WinGate interprets and evaluates the request and performs it on behalf of the client, passing back any data to the client as necessary.

It is important to note that, when using the Internet through WinGate, at no time are you directly connected to any machine beyond your LAN. You may seem to have a connection to the Internet, but this is because WinGate is connecting out for you and passing data back to you. This means that in ALL circumstances, the machine wanting access to the Internet connects to the machine running WinGate (the ‘WinGate machine’).

One of the first questions that should spring to mind is ‘how does WinGate know which server to connect to? The answer to this is simple - you have to tell it. Many applications can tell gateways where to connect to (eg Netscape, WS_FTP) but some cannot (i.e. News, IRC and others). When the application cannot tell WinGate where to connect to, the user must pre-configure WinGate to connect to a given machine. This is where the Mapping Proxies in WinGate come in. Mapping Proxies are a way of telling WinGate in advance where you want it to connect.

Most software that can talk through a proxy does not do so by default. You will have to configure the software to use WinGate instead of trying to connect directly. Most other ‘unaware’ software can use proxies if set up correctly.