How to Build a Super Simple HTTP proxy in Go in just 20 lines of code

Oct 1, 2023 ยท 3 min read

Go is a great language for writing simple and efficient network applications. Here is how we can build a basic HTTP proxy in Go in under 20 lines of code.

First we import the packages we need:

import (
  "net/http"
  "net/url"
  "io"
  "log"
)

Next we create a HandleProxy func to handle each request:

func HandleProxy(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {

  // proxy logic

}

Inside the handler we:

  • Parse the incoming request URL
  • Make the proxied request
  • Copy the response back to client
  • We put this together in a main function to start the proxy server:

    func main() {
    
      http.HandleFunc("/", HandleProxy)
    
      log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":8080", nil))
    
    }
    

    The full code for our 20 line HTTP proxy in Go:

    import (
      "net/http"
      "net/url"
      "io"
      "log"
    )
    
    func HandleProxy(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
    
      dest_url, _ := url.Parse(r.URL.String())
    
      res, _ := http.Get(dest_url.String())
    
      io.Copy(w, res.Body)
    
    }
    
    func main() {
    
      http.HandleFunc("/", HandleProxy)
    
      log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":8080", nil))
    
    }
    

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