Reverse Proxy

In reverse proxy mode, Proxelar sits in front of a backend service. Clients connect to Proxelar directly (without proxy configuration), and all requests are forwarded to the specified target.

This is useful for debugging local APIs, injecting headers, mocking endpoints, or testing how your frontend handles modified responses.

Usage

proxelar -m reverse --target http://localhost:3000

Clients connect to http://127.0.0.1:8080 and Proxelar forwards everything to http://localhost:3000.

How it works

1. The client sends a request to 127.0.0.1:8080
2. Proxelar rewrites the URI to the target (preserving path and query)
3. The Host header is updated to match the target
4. Lua on_request / on_response hooks run (if a script is loaded)
5. The response is returned to the client

Examples

# Reverse proxy to a local service
proxelar -m reverse --target http://localhost:3000

# Custom port (clients connect to 4000, forwarded to 3000)
proxelar -m reverse --target http://localhost:3000 -p 4000

# With a Lua script that injects auth headers
proxelar -m reverse --target http://localhost:3000 --script auth_dev.lua

# With web GUI
proxelar -m reverse --target http://localhost:3000 -i gui

Common use cases with scripting

Inject authentication

function on_request(request)
    request.headers["Authorization"] = "Bearer dev-token-12345"
    return request
end

Add security headers

function on_response(request, response)
    response.headers["Strict-Transport-Security"] = "max-age=31536000"
    response.headers["X-Content-Type-Options"] = "nosniff"
    response.headers["X-Frame-Options"] = "DENY"
    return response
end

Simulate errors

function on_request(request)
    if string.find(request.url, "/api/payments") then
        return {
            status = 500,
            headers = { ["Content-Type"] = "application/json" },
            body = '{"error": "Internal Server Error"}',
        }
    end
end