Deleted proxy ports are not reused

[axtens]

Context: Windows 10, Azure, C#, browsermob-proxy-2.1.0-beta-4

Suppose GET /proxy returns

{proxyList:[{port:8081}]}

We delete the 8081 proxy with

DELETE /proxy/8081

Such that GET /proxy returns

{proxyList:[]}

We then create a new proxy with

POST /proxy

which we confirm with a GET /proxy that returns

{proxyList:[{port:8082}]}

If I try to create a proxy numbered the same as a recently deleted one (with, say, POST /proxy and a body of "port=8081"), I get

{"port":8083}

(or whatever the next port will be by incrementing the port number of the most recently defined one was)

Here's the question: Having deleted 8081, why is the new proxy 8082? If I run a lot of different jobs through the BMP proxy, I'm going to ... eventually .. run out of proxy ports. Is there a way of reusing ports, or must I handle an ever increasing port number value?

[axtens]

AskProxy("GET", "/proxy");
Count = 2
    [0]: {[Status, OK]}
    [1]: {[Cargo, {"proxyList":[{"port":8082},{"port":8083}]}]}
AskProxy("DELETE", "/proxy/8082");
Count = 2
    [0]: {[Status, OK]}
    [1]: {[Cargo, ]}
AskProxy("DELETE", "/proxy/8083");
Count = 2
    [0]: {[Status, OK]}
    [1]: {[Cargo, ]}
AskProxy("POST", "/proxy", "port=8081");
Count = 2
    [0]: {[Status, OK]}
    [1]: {[Cargo, {"port":8084}]}
AskProxy("POST", "/proxy", "port=8099");
Count = 2
    [0]: {[Status, OK]}
    [1]: {[Cargo, {"port":8085}]}

There is the faint possibility that my POST routine does not properly encode the POST body, so here it is again via curl

>curl -X GET http://localhost:8080/proxy
{"proxyList":[{"port":8084},{"port":8085},{"port":8086}]}
>curl -X DELETE http://localhost:8080/proxy/8086

>curl -X DELETE http://localhost:8080/proxy/8085

>curl -X DELETE http://localhost:8080/proxy/8084

>curl -X GET http://localhost:8080/proxy
{"proxyList":[]}
>curl -X POST -d 'port=8081' http://localhost:8080/proxy
{"port":8087}

[jekh]

Thanks for the defect report, @axtens. This behavior is actually by design (for simplicity). I agree that it is less than ideal, though. I'll keep this open so we can address it as part of the upcoming REST redesign.

[sergzach]

Hi, should it be fixed soon or not?

By the way, if we use Python client (for instance) to access proxy server, using option existing_proxy_port_to_use helps not to create a new port but to use an existing one:

proxy = Client('website:8080', options={'existing_proxy_port_to_use': 8081})

Do not forget to open preliminarily port 8081 by sending empty post request (see axtens' comments above).