Configuring a proxy with Symfony Panther allows you to route your web scraping requests through an intermediate server, providing anonymity, geographic location switching, and rate limiting bypass capabilities.
Installation
First, ensure Symfony Panther is installed in your project:
composer require symfony/panther
Basic Proxy Configuration
HTTP/HTTPS Proxy Setup
Configure proxy settings through WebDriver capabilities when creating the Panther client:
<?php
use Symfony\Component\Panther\Client;
use Facebook\WebDriver\WebDriverCapabilityType;
// Basic proxy configuration
$capabilities = [
WebDriverCapabilityType::PROXY => [
'proxyType' => 'manual',
'httpProxy' => 'proxy.example.com:8080',
'sslProxy' => 'proxy.example.com:8080',
],
];
$client = Client::createChromeClient(null, null, [], null, [
'capabilities' => $capabilities,
]);
// Perform web scraping
$crawler = $client->request('GET', 'https://example.com');
$title = $crawler->filter('title')->text();
$client->quit();
SOCKS Proxy Configuration
For SOCKS proxies, use the socksProxy
capability:
<?php
use Symfony\Component\Panther\Client;
use Facebook\WebDriver\WebDriverCapabilityType;
$capabilities = [
WebDriverCapabilityType::PROXY => [
'proxyType' => 'manual',
'socksProxy' => 'socks5-proxy.example.com:1080',
'socksVersion' => 5, // SOCKS version (4 or 5)
],
];
$client = Client::createChromeClient(null, null, [], null, [
'capabilities' => $capabilities,
]);
Authenticated Proxy Configuration
For proxies requiring authentication, include credentials in the proxy URL:
<?php
use Symfony\Component\Panther\Client;
use Facebook\WebDriver\WebDriverCapabilityType;
$proxyHost = 'authenticated-proxy.example.com';
$proxyPort = 8080;
$username = 'your_username';
$password = 'your_password';
$capabilities = [
WebDriverCapabilityType::PROXY => [
'proxyType' => 'manual',
'httpProxy' => "$username:$password@$proxyHost:$proxyPort",
'sslProxy' => "$username:$password@$proxyHost:$proxyPort",
],
];
$client = Client::createChromeClient(null, null, [], null, [
'capabilities' => $capabilities,
]);
Advanced Configuration Examples
Complete Web Scraping Class with Proxy
<?php
use Symfony\Component\Panther\Client;
use Facebook\WebDriver\WebDriverCapabilityType;
class ProxyWebScraper
{
private $client;
public function __construct(string $proxyHost, int $proxyPort, string $username = null, string $password = null)
{
$proxyUrl = $proxyHost . ':' . $proxyPort;
if ($username && $password) {
$proxyUrl = "$username:$password@$proxyUrl";
}
$capabilities = [
WebDriverCapabilityType::PROXY => [
'proxyType' => 'manual',
'httpProxy' => $proxyUrl,
'sslProxy' => $proxyUrl,
],
];
// Additional Chrome options for better scraping
$chromeOptions = [
'--disable-blink-features=AutomationControlled',
'--disable-web-security',
'--user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36'
];
$this->client = Client::createChromeClient(null, $chromeOptions, [], null, [
'capabilities' => $capabilities,
]);
}
public function scrapeUrl(string $url): array
{
$crawler = $this->client->request('GET', $url);
return [
'title' => $crawler->filter('title')->count() > 0 ? $crawler->filter('title')->text() : null,
'description' => $crawler->filter('meta[name="description"]')->count() > 0
? $crawler->filter('meta[name="description"]')->attr('content') : null,
'h1' => $crawler->filter('h1')->count() > 0 ? $crawler->filter('h1')->text() : null,
];
}
public function close(): void
{
$this->client->quit();
}
}
// Usage example
$scraper = new ProxyWebScraper('proxy.example.com', 8080, 'username', 'password');
$data = $scraper->scrapeUrl('https://example.com');
$scraper->close();
Firefox WebDriver with Proxy
<?php
use Symfony\Component\Panther\Client;
use Facebook\WebDriver\WebDriverCapabilityType;
$capabilities = [
WebDriverCapabilityType::PROXY => [
'proxyType' => 'manual',
'httpProxy' => 'proxy.example.com:8080',
'sslProxy' => 'proxy.example.com:8080',
],
];
$client = Client::createFirefoxClient(null, null, [], null, [
'capabilities' => $capabilities,
]);
Proxy Types and Configuration Options
| Proxy Type | Configuration Key | Example Value |
|------------|------------------|---------------|
| HTTP | httpProxy
| proxy.example.com:8080
|
| HTTPS | sslProxy
| proxy.example.com:8080
|
| SOCKS4 | socksProxy
+ socksVersion: 4
| socks.example.com:1080
|
| SOCKS5 | socksProxy
+ socksVersion: 5
| socks.example.com:1080
|
| FTP | ftpProxy
| ftp-proxy.example.com:8080
|
Error Handling and Troubleshooting
<?php
try {
$client = Client::createChromeClient(null, null, [], null, [
'capabilities' => $capabilities,
]);
$crawler = $client->request('GET', 'https://httpbin.org/ip');
$response = $crawler->text();
// Verify proxy is working by checking IP
$ipData = json_decode($response, true);
echo "Current IP: " . $ipData['origin'] . "\n";
} catch (\Exception $e) {
echo "Proxy configuration error: " . $e->getMessage() . "\n";
} finally {
if (isset($client)) {
$client->quit();
}
}
Best Practices
- Always close the client after use to free resources
- Test proxy connectivity before starting large scraping operations
- Rotate proxies for high-volume scraping to avoid detection
- Handle proxy failures gracefully with fallback mechanisms
- Respect rate limits even when using proxies
- Verify proxy anonymity by checking your IP address
Legal Considerations
When using proxies for web scraping:
- Check the target website's robots.txt
and terms of service
- Ensure proxy usage complies with your proxy provider's terms
- Respect website rate limits and implement delays between requests
- Consider the legal implications of circumventing geographic restrictions