What tools are available for testing client/server software in various network topologies?

Question

For testing a client/server platform that communicates over TCP/IP, is there a tool available to mimic various types of interposed network component, such a firewall with NAT or a SOCKS5 server.

Essentially, I want to have this configuration:

client <-> proxy <-> server

I want to be able to specify what type of proxy to mimic and I don't want to install a bunch of heavy or expensive proxy servers.

A bonus would be for the proxy to include traffic shaping features.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You have not specified what all kinds of proxies you would like to mimic, but to me it sounds like any linux box could be your solution and serve running those programs. If you want more complicated network topologies or just don't have even the one machine to add between the client and server, you can probably run all the components in virtual machines using for example VirtualBox.