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How to access Facebook behind firewall

Posted under » Ubuntu on 17 January 2011

For sure this is not as simple as it sounds. The easiest way is to use a proxy server.

If you have money and are not are not technically inclined, get a VPN or proxy service. It will cost about US$8 a month.

There are free services that offer a work around. Yahoo (pulse-mail), tweetdeck and netvibes can do the trick.

However, if you have admin access to a linux (Ubuntu) server, then here is how I did it.

You need to install Squid. Squid is a full-featured web proxy cache server application which provides proxy and cache services for Hyper Text Transport Protocol (HTTP), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and other popular network protocols. Squid can implement caching and proxying of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) requests and caching of Domain Name Server (DNS) lookups, and perform transparent caching. 

apt-get install squid //or
apt-get install squid squid-common

Common installation is preferred. You can modify the configuration later.
/etc/squid/squid.conf

A good idea is to set your Squid server to listen on TCP port 8888 instead of the default TCP port 3128,
Change the http_port directive as such: http_port 8888

To stop and start 

/etc/init.d/squid restart 
// or if 10.10
service squid stop
service squid status

Since the title is about facebook, the next step is to create a SSH tunnel. If you are using windows, you can use putty. If you are using Ubuntu, then use Gnome SSH Tunnel Manager.

Putty is a bit tricky so here is an explanation.

  • Create a session like normal and save it
  • then go connection > SSH > Tunnels
  • Source port : 3128 (if squid default)
  • Choose dynamic
  • Choose auto
  • then press add button. You will see D3128
  • then connect as usual
  • save settings

Once tunnel is done, you need to know how to use it. My browser of choice is Mozilla.

  • then go options > advanced > networks > settings >
  • select manual proxy config
  • socks host : localhost
  • & port : 3128
  • select socks 5

That's it, you can now go to facebook. You might also want to check your new IP.