Awesome

Merged Into MassBrowser

CacheBrowser has been merged into our new censorship circumvention tool called <b>MassBrowser</b>. Please visit the MassBrowser project's website and its git repository.

CacheBrowser

The current CacheBrowser software is a research prototype implementation, and is not yet ready for end-users. If you are a researcher or developer check it out and give us feedback, otherwise please be patient while we work on an end-user version of the code. Thanks for your understanding and support!

https://cachebrowser.net

Installing CacheBrowser
Bootstrapping
Commands

Installation

pip install cachebrowser

Running CacheBrowser

To run the CacheBrowser process simply enter the cachebrowser command

cachebrowser

You can then use CacheBrowser by using the CacheBrowser plugin for your browser or by setting the HTTP and HTTPS proxy on your browser to localhost:8080

Bootstrapping

In order to be able to browse a page using CacheBrowser, the page must first be bootstrapped. What this means is that CacheBrowser must first find out what CDN the page is hosted on and also obtain some edge server addresses for that CDN.

CacheBrowser supports local and remote bootstrapping sources. Local bootstrapping sources are files in YAML format which provide bootstrapping information for hosts and CDNs. Remote bootstrapping sources are RESTful services which provide bootstrapping information through HTTP requests.

Configuring Bootstrapping Sources

Any number of local or remote bootstrapping sources may be defined in the CacheBrowser configuration file. When bootstrapping a host or host, CacheBrowser will go through the provided sources in the specified order until the information is found.

Bootstrapping sources can be specified in the configuration file using the bootstrapper_sources key, for example:

boostrapper_sources:
	- type: local
	  path: local_bootstrapper.yaml
	- type: remote
	  url: https://bootstrap.cachebrowser.net/api

Local Boostrapping Files

A local bootstrapping file is a YAML file containing a list of Host or CDN information.

For example:

- type: cdn
  id: akamai
  name: Akamai
  edge_servers:
    - 23.208.91.198
    - 23.218.210.7

- type: host
  name: www.nbc.com
  ssl: false
  cdn: akamai

- type: host
  name: www.bloomberg.com
  ssl: false
  cdn: akamai

For each CDN provided in the bootstrapping file the following information should be provided:

Key	Value
type	cdn
id	A unique ID to be used for the CDN
name	The CDN Name
edge_servers	List of edge server addresses for the CDN

For each Host provided in the bootstrapping file the following information should be provided:

Key	Value
type	host
name	The hostname
cdn	The ID of the CDN which provides this host
ssl	Whether the pages supports HTTPS connections or not

CacheBrowser Commands

You could also run a command with CacheBrowser:

cachebrowser <command>

These are the valid commands you could give:

Command	Description
bootstrap <host>	Bootstrap <host>
get `url` `[target]`	Retrieve `url` using CacheBrowser. If `target` is specified CacheBrowser uses the given target. If not, CacheBrowser uses the bootstrapped target if the host has been bootstrapped or makes a normal request to the host if not.
host list	Lists the bootstrapped hosts
host add	Add host info
cdn list	Lists the bootstrapped CDNs
cdn add	Add host info

Example

cachebrowser bootstrap www.nbc.com
cachebrowser get http://www.nbc.com

cachebrowser get https://www.istockphoto.com 69.31.76.91