# README

LLM Proxy

A high-performance, easy-to-install proxy server designed to intercept and modify requests to LLM APIs like OpenAI. With a single compiled binary and no external runtime dependencies, it’s easy to deploy and operate.

Current Features

Easy Installation: Easy to deploy and run with a single compiled binary or Docker container.
High Performance: Written in Go, the proxy is fast and efficient.
Exact Match Caching: If the request body has been previously processed, future responses will be dispatched from an embedded BoltDB database.
Logging: Save all API requests and responses to disk (or stdout) as JSON.

Upcoming Features

OpenTelemetry trace exporting to various APM platforms
Request/Response Modification (Headers, Body, etc.)
Semantic Caching
Grounding & Moderation
Rate Limiting
Export to Evaluation Platforms
Streaming Mode (currently only supports stream=false)

How to install and run the proxy

Install Go
Run go install github.com/proxati/llm_proxy/v2@latest
The binary will be stored in your $GOPATH/bin directory.
Verify installation with llm_proxy --help.
Set your HTTP_PROXY and HTTPS_PROXY environment variables to http://localhost:8080.
Start the proxy server: llm_proxy run
Use the OpenAI API as you normally would.

Running the proxy server

$ llm_proxy run --verbose

Using cURL to query, and use the proxy

(Set your OpenAI API key in the header)

$ curl \
    -x http://localhost:8080 \
    -X GET \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-XXXXXXX" \
    http://api.openai.com/v1/models

Note: This example uses http://api.openai.com/... instead of https:// because the proxy handles SSL termination and upgrades the outbound request to https://. See the TLS section for more details.

Using the proxy with the OpenAI Python client

In this example, we are changing the base_url to connect via http so the proxy can MITM the connection without needing to add a self-signed cert to the Python client.

import httpx
from openai import OpenAI

proxies = {
    "http://": "http://localhost:8080",
    "https://": "http://localhost:8080",
}

client = OpenAI(
    # max_retries=0,
    base_url="http://api.openai.com/v1",
    http_client=httpx.Client(
        proxies=proxies,
    ),
)

chat_completion = client.chat.completions.create(
    messages=[
        {
            "role": "user",
            "content": "Hello, you are amazing.",
        }
    ],
    model="gpt-3.5-turbo",
)

More info here: httpx proxy config

TLS / HTTPs Support

Requests sent to http://api.openai.com are upgraded to https://api.openai.com by the proxy. If you need to send requests directly to https://api.openai.com, you must add the self-signed cert to your trust store or disable TLS validation (not recommended).

The proxy generates a certificate at ~/.mitmproxy/mitmproxy-ca-cert.pem. To use a different directory, use the --ca_dir flag when starting the proxy daemon.

More info on self-signed certs and MITM: [https://docs.mitmproxy.org/stable/concepts-certificates/]

Generating and Trusting a Self-Signed Cert on MacOS

# Create a directory for the cert files
$ mkdir -p ~/.mitmproxy
$ cd ~/.mitmproxy

# you only need to generate this cert if you do not want the llm_proxy to generate it for you
$ openssl genrsa -out mitmproxy-ca-cert.key 2048
# this self-signed cert expires in 10 years, and I hope you are using something else by that point
$ openssl req -x509 -new -nodes -key mitmproxy-ca-cert.key -sha256 -days 3650 -out mitmproxy-ca-cert.pem

# Trust the CA
$ sudo security add-trusted-cert -d -r trustRoot -k /Library/Keychains/System.keychain mitmproxy-ca-cert.pem

Using cURL with the Proxy and Self-Signed Cert

(Set your OpenAI API key in the header)

$ curl \
    -x http://localhost:8080 \
    --cacert ~/.mitmproxy/mitmproxy-ca.pem \
    -X GET \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-XXXXXXX" \
    https://api.openai.com/v1/models