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NodeJs Request-Promise: How to Use & Rotate Proxies

NodeJs Request-Promise: How to Use & Rotate Proxies

Using Proxies With Request-Promise

To use proxies with a NodeJs Request-Promise add the proxy string to the request options using the proxy attribute.


import request from 'request-promise';

(async () => {
    const options = {
        method: 'GET',
        url: 'http://httpbin.org/ip',
        proxy:'http://proxy.example.com:8080'
        }

    try{
        const response = await request(options)
        console.log(response);

    } catch (error){
        console.log('error', error)
    }
    
})();

In this guide for The Nodejs Web Scraping Playbook, we will look at how to integrate the 3 most common types of proxies into our Nodejs Request-Promise based web scraper.

Using proxies with the Request-Promise library allows you to spread your requests over multiple IP addresses making it harder for websites to detect & block your web scrapers.

In this guide we will walk you through the 3 most common proxy integration methods and show you how to use them with Nodejs Request-Promise:

Let's begin...

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Then check out ScrapeOps, the complete toolkit for web scraping.

Using Proxy IPs With Request-Promise​

Using a proxy with Request-Promise is very straight forward. We simply need to add the proxy string to the request options using the proxy attribute.


import request from 'request-promise';

(async () => {
    const options = {
        method: 'GET',
        url: 'http://httpbin.org/ip',
        proxy:'http://proxy.example.com:8080'
        }

    try{
        const response = await request(options)
        console.log(response);

    } catch (error){
        console.log('error', error)
    }
    
})();

This method will work for all request methods Request-Promise supports: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, PATCH, HEAD.

Proxy Authentication With Request-Promise​

Some proxy IPs require authentication in the form of a username and password to use the proxy.

To add authenticate the proxy we can simply add the username and password to the proxy strings:


import request from 'request-promise';

(async () => {
    const options = {
        method: 'GET',
        url: 'http://httpbin.org/ip',
        proxy: 'http://USERNAME:PASSWORD@proxy.example.com:8080',
        }

    try{
        const response = await request(options)
        console.log(response);

    } catch (error){
        console.log('error', error)
    }
    
})();

The 3 Most Common Proxy Formats​

That covered the basics of integrating a proxy into Request-Promise, in the next sections we will show you how to integrate Request-Promise into the 3 most common proxy formats:

  • Rotating Through List of Proxy IPs
  • Using Proxy Gateways
  • Using Proxy APIs

A couple years ago, proxy providers would sell you a list of proxy IP addresses and you would configure your scraper to rotate through these IP addresses and use a new one with each request.

However, today more and more proxy providers don't sell raw lists of proxy IP addresses anymore. Instead providing access to their proxy pools via proxy gateways or proxy API endpoints.

We will look at how to integrate with all 3 proxy formats.

Finding Proxy Providers

If you are looking to find a good proxy provider then check out our web scraping proxy comparison tool where you can compare the plans of all the major proxy providers.

Proxy Integration #1: Rotating Through Proxy IP List​

Here a proxy provider will normally provide you with a list of proxy IP addresses that you will need to configure your scraper to rotate through and select a new IP address for every request.

The proxy list you recieve will look something like this:


'http://Username:Password@85.237.57.198:20000',
'http://Username:Password@85.237.57.198:21000',
'http://Username:Password@85.237.57.198:22000',
'http://Username:Password@85.237.57.198:23000',

To integrate them into our scrapers we need to configure our code to pick a random proxy from this list everytime we make a request.

In our Nodejs Request-Promise scraper we could do it like this:


import request from 'request-promise';

(async () => {
    
    const proxyList = [
        'http://Username:Password@85.237.57.198:20000',
        'http://Username:Password@85.237.57.198:21000',
        'http://Username:Password@85.237.57.198:22000',
        'http://Username:Password@85.237.57.198:23000',
    ]

    const randomProxy = proxyList[Math.floor(Math.random()*proxyList.length)];

    const options = {
        method: 'GET',
        url: 'http://httpbin.org/ip',
        proxy: randomProxy,
        }

    try{
        const response = await request(options)
        console.log(response);

    } catch (error){
        console.log('error', error)
    }
    
})();

This is a simplistic example, as when scraping at scale we would also need to build a mechanism to monitor the performance of each individual IP address and remove it from the proxy rotation if it got banned or blocked.

Proxy Integration #2: Using Proxy Gateway​

Increasingly, a lot of proxy providers aren't selling lists of proxy IP addresses anymore. Instead, they give you access to their proxy pools via a proxy gateway.

Here, you only have to integrate a single proxy into your Request-Promise scraper and the proxy provider will manage the proxy rotation, selection, cleaning, etc. on their end for you.

This is the most common way to use residential and mobile proxies, and becoming increasingly common when using datacenter proxies too.

Here is an example of how to integrate a BrightData's residential proxy gateway into our Request-Promise scraper:


import request from 'request-promise';

(async () => {
    const options = {
        method: 'GET',
        url: 'http://httpbin.org/ip',
        proxy: 'http://USERNAME:PASSWORD@zproxy.lum-superproxy.io:22225',
        }

    try{
        const response = await request(options)
        console.log(response);

    } catch (error){
        console.log('error', error)
    }
    
})();

As you can see, it is much easier to integrate than using a proxy list as you don't have to worry about implementing all the proxy rotation logic.

Proxy Integration #3: Using Proxy API Endpoint​

Recently, a lot of proxy providers have started offering smart proxy APIs that take care of managing your proxy infrastructure for you by rotating proxies and headers for you so you can focus on extracting the data you need.

Here you typically, send the URL you want to scrape to their API endpoint and then they will return the HTML response.

Although every proxy API provider has a slightly different API integration, they are all very similar and are very easy to integrate with.

Here is an example of how to integrate with the ScrapeOps Proxy Manager:


import request from 'request-promise';

(async () => {
    const options = {
        method: 'GET',
        url: `https://proxy.scrapeops.io/v1/`,
        qs: {
            'api_key': 'YOUR_API_KEY',
            'url': 'http://httpbin.org/ip'
        },
        }

    try{
        const response = await request(options)
        console.log(response);

    } catch (error){
        console.log('error', error)
    }
    
})();

Here you simply send the URL you want to scrape to the ScrapeOps API endpoint in the URL query parameter, along with your API key in the api_key query parameter, and ScrapeOps will deal with finding the best proxy for that domain and return the HTML response to you.

You can get your own free API key with 1,000 free requests by signing up here.

More Web Scraping Tutorials​

So that's how you can integrate proxies into your Request-Promise scrapers.

If you would like to learn more about Web Scraping, then be sure to check out The Web Scraping Playbook.

Or check out one of our more in-depth guides: