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Key Concepts

MyOwnProxy is built around a small set of core concepts. Understanding how they relate to each other makes the rest of the platform easier to use.

Gateway

A Gateway is the entry point used to access proxy traffic.

Your applications connect to a Gateway using a supported proxy method. For Pool access, the Gateway routes new connections through the Pool's Current Node. See Connection Details for the supported methods.

Gateways run on infrastructure controlled by you.

A Node is assigned to a Gateway for connectivity and management, while Pools determine which Nodes can serve traffic for a Proxy.

Node

A Node provides the Internet exit connection for proxy traffic.

Nodes run on customer-controlled hardware and connect automatically to MyOwnProxy after they have been prepared and started.

Each Node is assigned to a Gateway.

A Node can be included in a Pool to serve proxy traffic.

Proxy

A Proxy defines how a group of Nodes is exposed for proxy use.

MyOwnProxy is designed primarily around Pool-based proxy access.

A Proxy is associated with a Pool of Nodes that may be selected to serve traffic.

Pool

A Pool is the set of Nodes that are available to serve traffic for a Proxy.

Managing a customer-created Pool mainly means managing its Node membership.

Each Gateway also has a system-managed Pool named pool-all. MyOwnProxy automatically keeps pool-all populated with the Nodes assigned to that Gateway. It is the only Pool whose membership is maintained automatically; customer-created Pools require manual membership changes.

New application connections use the Pool's Current Node. MyOwnProxy periodically reevaluates that selection among eligible Pool members.

Pools make it possible to operate multiple exit Nodes without requiring the application to select a specific Node for every connection.

Direct Node access

Although MyOwnProxy is designed around Pools, you can also connect through a specific Node when your use case requires a particular exit Node.

Both Pool access and Direct Node access support the same proxy methods.

Proxy Credential

A Proxy Credential authenticates SOCKS5, HTTP proxy, and HTTPS CONNECT connections using the same username and password model.

MyOwnProxy supports two credential scopes:

  • Temporary credentials are associated with a Gateway.
  • Persistent credentials are associated with the Customer.

Credentials can be created, rotated, revoked, and configured with expiration where applicable.

Customer

A Customer represents an organization using MyOwnProxy.

Customer resources, users, configuration, and Proxy Credentials are isolated from those belonging to other customers.

User roles

Customer users have one of two roles:

  • ADMIN users can manage customer resources and perform the customer-facing administrative actions available in MyOwnProxy.
  • VIEWER users have read-only access on supported pages. They cannot access every customer-facing feature; current exceptions include Users and Proxy Credentials.

Some sensitive operations are restricted to MyOwnProxy administrators.

See Roles and Permissions for the current capability summary.

How the concepts fit together

A typical MyOwnProxy environment looks like this:

Customer
  |
  +-- Gateway
  |     |
  |     +-- Node A
  |     +-- Node B
  |     +-- Node C
  |
  +-- Proxy
        |
        +-- Pool
              |
              +-- Node A
              +-- Node B
              +-- Node C

Applications normally connect to the Proxy through the Pool using a supported proxy method and a Proxy Credential.