While a forward proxy acts as an intermediary for its associated clients to contact any server, a reverse proxy acts as an intermediary for its associated servers to be contacted by any client.
为 client 做代理
为 server 做代理
Reverse proxies can hide the existence and characteristics of an origin server or servers.
反向代理可以隐藏原始服务
Application firewall features can protect against common web-based attacks, such as DOS or DDOS. Without a reverse proxy, removing malware or initiating takedowns, for example, can become difficult.
应用防火墙特性可以抵御基于网络的攻击，比如拒绝服务或者分布式拒绝服务。
In the case of secure websites, a web server may not perform SSL encryption itself, but instead offloads the task to a reverse proxy that may be equipped with SSL acceleration hardware. (See SSL termination proxy.)
对于安全站点，服务器本身可能不会执行SSL加密，而是把该任务交给配备了SSL加速硬件的反向代理服务器。
A reverse proxy can distribute the load from incoming requests to several servers, with each server serving its own application area. In the case of reverse proxying in the neighborhood of web servers, the reverse proxy may have to rewrite the URL in each incoming request in order to match the relevant internal location of the requested resource.
反向代理可以把请求压力分发到多态服务器，需要重写URL来匹配请求资源的正确的内部地址。
A reverse proxy can reduce load on its origin servers by caching static content, as well as dynamic content - also known as web acceleration. Proxy caches of this sort can often satisfy a considerable number of website requests, greatly reducing the load on the origin server(s).
反向代理可以通过缓存静态内容和动态内容来削减原始服务器的压力，被称之为网络加速。
A reverse proxy can optimize content by compressing it in order to speed up loading times.
反向代理可以通过压缩提速
In a technique known as "spoon-feed"[2] a dynamically generated page can be produced all at once and served to the reverse-proxy, which can then return it to the client a little bit at a time. The program that generates the page need not remain open, thus releasing server resources during the possibly extended time the client requires to complete the transfer.
服务器可以一次性把页面给反向代理，反向代理可以一点一点的返回给client。
Reverse proxies can operate whenever multiple web-servers must be accessible via a single public IP address. The web servers listen on different ports in the same machine, with the same local IP address or, possibly, on different machines and different local IP addresses altogether. The reverse proxy analyzes each incoming request and delivers it to the right server within the local area network.