@emad-r said in Proxies as VPN?:
@emad-r
They are using reverse proxy squid on a PFsense router as VPN. or to access company resources.
For example, I think they made LAN 7.7.7.* and put company resource like http://web/company
and only 7.7.7.* can access it in the config on PFsense.
It does not work 100% of course. As you can bypass it if you do http://web/company?32141 and access it from WAN
That works only if the resources are web only. In which case, a VPN was never appropriate in the first place. So in this case, a VPN would actually allow you to access unpublished web resources. But the reverse proxy will publish them.
Now the presumed difference to most people is that the VPN will add a layer or protection in the form of authentication, and the proxy will not. This is not correct, however, because you can add that to the proxy, too.
So, in reality, you are correct, in this specific case, the reverse proxy is actually making a VPN for just those specific web resources. It's a special case VPN, assuming you are using it as an SSL point.