Overview
This is a very interesting proxy server. It compresses and decompresses data for transmission over low-speed links such as modems. The idea is simple, a compression proxy at the side of the hi-speed link (e.g. Your Local ISP), a decompression proxy at the side of the low-speed link (e.g. John Q. Modem-User). To handle the compression and decompression tasks, a repository of network computers that donate their processing power to speed up the process. So, modem user makes a request to the decompression proxy The proxy requests the page from the compression proxy. The compression proxy grabs the page and sends it out to be compressed by one of the network computers. The Network computer (zRPC server) compresses the data (a very CPU intensive process) and sends it back to the compression proxy. This proxy sends the compressed data over the low-speed link (the modem) to the decompression proxy on the user's side. The decompression proxy sends out the compressed data to a local zRPC server to decompress the data. That server handles the decompression, and sends it back to the decompression proxy. Finally, the decompression proxy sends the uncompressed page that John Q. Modem-User wanted to the user. A simple idea; complicated implementation. However, that is all transparent to the user. All the user knows is he gets his web pages faster over his modem link. No extra money, no extra hardware, no broadband required.
This idea has been used in NetZero Hi-Speed and EarthLink Accelerator. However, they are not using the zRPC uzProxy.
Features
- Demonstrates distributed computing.
- Full featured HTTP/1.0 proxy.
- zRPC servers can be on the same machine, if no extra machines are available.
- Tested under Solaris and Linux.
- Open Source.
License
Licensed under the GNU General Public License.
Learn more about GNU and free software at http://www.gnu.org/.
Download
zrpc.tar.gz (114 KB)