Web proxy and Reverse proxy

Web Proxies

Users configure the proxy in their browser settings and all HTTP requests are routed via the proxy.

Proxies can achieve several puposes : 

 1. to speed access to the Web by caching pages fetched, so that popular pages don't have to be re-fetched for every user who views them.

 2. enable controlled access to the web for users behind a firewall

 3. filter or transform web content

Reverse Proxies

A gateway for servers and enables one web server to provide content from another transparently.

Reverse proxy may serve :

 1. Most common reason is to enable controlled access from the Web at large to servers behind a firewall

 2. to improve performance of the web by caching.

 3. Other common usage is Loadbalancing a heavy-duty application or protecting a vulnerable one

The proxied server may be a webserver itself or it may be an application server using a different protocol, or an application server.

Reverse proxying has been the preferred method of deploying JAVA/Tomcat applications on the Web replacing the old mod_jk (itself a special-purpose reverse proxy module)