Caching Proxy

The Caching Proxy is a Python-based lightweight proxy to support developers programming against rate-limited third-party APIs. It's build to intercept all requests and respond with data from cache, or forward the request to the target host if it hasn't seen this request yet.

Running the proxy

Docker

The easiest way to get started is to use prebuilt docker image. The following command starts the proxy on port 5000:

docker run -p "5000:5000" robinvandenhurk/cache-proxy

If you want to use a local session file you must mount it to the container:

docker run -p "5000:5000" -v "/tmp/cache.session:/cache.session" robinvandenhurk/cache-proxy

From source

You can also run the proxy from source. First, clone the repo and install the requirements:

git clone https://github.com/RobinvandenHurk/cache-proxy.git
cd cache-proxy
pip install -r requirements.txt

Then start the proxy:

python3 proxy.py

Usage

Once you started the proxy it is ready to go. Simply append http://localhost:5000 to your original request to make the request flow through the proxy. For example, if your original request is like this:

curl https://catfact.ninja/fact

Your new request would be like this:

curl http://localhost:5000/https://catfact.ninja/fact

Why would you need this?

You may want to use this proxy if you are tasked with programming against a third-party API that applies rate-limiting. During development you can easily send a bunch of requests which ultimately gets you (temporary) blocked, which may drastically impact your productivity.

This simple proxy intercepts your requests and stores them in cache so that when you repeat the request, the proxy will respond with the cached response rather than forwarding your request to the actual target host.

What can you use this for?

This proxy was build to intercept API calls and respond from cache if possible. That means you can use it for most API calls. However, it does not play nice with binary responses, like images. The primary focus of this proxy currently lies in handling text based payloads, though binary support may be added later.

Contributing

If you desire some changes or new features in this server you generally have two options:

• Build it yourself and create a pull request (Please do :)
• Create an issue describing (very clearly) what it is that you want

TODO

• Improve cache strategies (Right now read from cache based on HTTP method and URL)