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Proxy glossary

What is the HTTP CONNECT method?

CONNECT is the HTTP request a client sends to a proxy to open a raw tunnel to a host and port, which is how HTTPS traffic passes through an HTTP proxy.

CONNECT method explained

Also called HTTP tunnelling or CONNECT tunnel.

Your client sends the proxy one line, CONNECT example.com:443 HTTP/1.1, plus any Proxy-Authorization header. If the proxy accepts, it opens a TCP connection to that host and port and answers 200 Connection established. RFC 9110 defines the method: after a 2xx response the connection stops carrying HTTP messages and becomes a blind relay in both directions.

Everything after the 200 is your client talking TLS straight to the site. The proxy sees the host and port you asked for, when the tunnel opened, and how many bytes moved. It does not see the URL path, headers, cookies or the page, because none of that exists yet at the proxy: it is encrypted between you and the site.

When a proxy refuses, the failure shows up at the CONNECT step rather than as a page. A 407 means the credentials were missing or wrong, 403 means the proxy will not tunnel to that port, and 502 or 504 mean it could not reach the target. Tools that report only "tunnel failed" are usually hiding one of these.

Plain http:// URLs do not need CONNECT. The proxy reads the request and forwards it, which is why it can see and change that traffic.

For example

Run curl with -v against an https URL through a proxy. Before any TLS output you will see > CONNECT httpbin.org:443 HTTP/1.1 and then < HTTP/1.1 200 Connection established. That pair is the whole handshake with the proxy.

terminal
curl -v -x http://USER:[email protected]:8000 https://httpbin.org/ip

Swap in your own credentials from the dashboard. It also lists the host and port for each order; where they differ from this example, the dashboard is right.

How it works at ProxyMonkey

  • All three lines accept HTTP and HTTPS proxy connections, so https sites go through a CONNECT tunnel. SOCKS5 is available as well.

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