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### 3.12 Tunnelling connections

Polipo is an HTTP proxy; it proxies HTTP traffic, and clients using other protocols should either establish a direct connection to the server or use an ad hoc proxy.

In many circumstances, however, it is not possible to establish a direct connection to the server, for example due to mis-configured firewalls or when trying to access the IPv4 Internet from an IPv6-only host. In such situations, it is possible to have Polipo behave as a tunnelling proxy — a proxy that merely forwards traffic between the client and the server without understanding it. Polipo enters tunnel mode when the client requests it by using the HTTP ‘`CONNECT`’ method.

Most web browsers will use this technique for HTTP over SSL if configured to use Polipo as their `https proxy'. More generally, the author has successfully used it to cross mis-configured firewalls using OpenSSH, rsync, Jabber, IRC, etc.

The variable `tunnelAllowedPorts` specifies the set of ports that Polipo will accept to tunnel traffic to. It defaults to allowing ssh, HTTP, https, rsync, IMAP, imaps, POP, pops, Jabber, CVS and Git traffic.