Development

Python Proxy Setup

Connect SotaProxy to any Python HTTP library in under 5 minutes.

Python is the most common language for web scraping and automation. SotaProxy works with every major Python HTTP library: requests, httpx, aiohttp, and urllib. The configuration is the same across all - set the proxy URL with your credentials.

Setup guide

Install requests (if needed)

bash

pip install requests

The requests library is the simplest option for synchronous scraping.

Basic proxy configuration

python

import requests

proxy_url = "http://YOUR_USERNAME:YOUR_PASSWORD@proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000"

proxies = {
    "http": proxy_url,
    "https": proxy_url,
}

response = requests.get("https://httpbin.org/ip", proxies=proxies)
print(response.json())

Replace YOUR_USERNAME and YOUR_PASSWORD with your SotaProxy credentials. The proxy URL format is http://user:pass@host:port.

Sticky session (same IP for multiple requests)

python

import requests

# Append session ID to username for sticky sessions
session_id = 1001
proxy_url = f"http://YOUR_USERNAME_s_{session_id}_ttl_15m:YOUR_PASSWORD@proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000"

proxies = {"http": proxy_url, "https": proxy_url}

# Both requests will use the same IP
r1 = requests.get("https://example.com/page1", proxies=proxies)
r2 = requests.get("https://example.com/page2", proxies=proxies)

Append _s_{id}_ttl_15m to your username to hold the same IP across multiple requests. Change the session ID to rotate to a new IP.

Geo-targeting

python

import requests

# Target a specific country (US in this example)
proxy_url = "http://YOUR_USERNAME_c_US:YOUR_PASSWORD@proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000"

proxies = {"http": proxy_url, "https": proxy_url}
response = requests.get("https://example.com", proxies=proxies)

Append _c_XX to your username where XX is the ISO country code in upper case: US, DE, GB, FR.

Full example

Async scraper with httpx and proxy rotation

python

import httpx
import asyncio

PROXY_URL = "http://YOUR_USERNAME:YOUR_PASSWORD@proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000"
URLS = [
    "https://example.com/product/1",
    "https://example.com/product/2",
    "https://example.com/product/3",
]

async def fetch(client, url):
    try:
        response = await client.get(url, timeout=30.0)
        return {"url": url, "status": response.status_code, "length": len(response.text)}
    except Exception as e:
        return {"url": url, "error": str(e)}

async def main():
    async with httpx.AsyncClient(proxy=PROXY_URL) as client:
        tasks = [fetch(client, url) for url in URLS]
        results = await asyncio.gather(*tasks)
        for result in results:
            print(result)

asyncio.run(main())

Automate it with the SotaProxy API

Everything above works without opening the dashboard. With an API key, Python can pull fresh proxy credentials, buy new proxies, and renew expiring ones - straight from code.

python

import requests

API = "https://api.sotaproxy.com/api/v1"
H = {"Authorization": "Bearer sk_live_your_key"}

# Every active proxy on your account - no copy-pasting credentials
proxies = requests.get(f"{API}/proxies", headers=H).json()["proxies"]
p = proxies[0]
proxy_url = f"http://{p['login']}:{p['password']}@{p['ip']}:{p['portHttp']}"

# Buy more when you scale (price-check first with POST /quote)
requests.post(
    f"{API}/orders",
    headers={**H, "Idempotency-Key": "my-unique-order-id"},
    json={"product": "ipv4", "countryId": 565, "periodId": "1m", "quantity": 5},
)

Read the API docs

Both address types in one client

Our residential pool and our static addresses authenticate the same way, by login and password. The difference lives in the host and in what you put after the login:

Rotating residential

Pinned to a country

login_c_US:password@proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000

Sticky for 15 minutes

login_c_US_s_42_ttl_15m:password@proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000

Static address (ISP, datacenter)

SOCKS5 needs an extra package. Run pip install requests[socks] first, then use socks5h:// so that DNS resolves on our side rather than on yours.

Rotating without a rotation library

You do not need middleware to change addresses. Rotating residential gives you a new IP on every request by default, and a session id pins one when you need it to hold:

Python: a session per worker, rotation everywhere else

import requests

BASE = "proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000"
USER, PWD = "login", "password"

def proxy(country=None, session=None, ttl="15m"):
    login = USER
    if country:
        login += f"_c_{country}"
    if session:
        login += f"_s_{session}_ttl_{ttl}"
    url = f"http://{login}:{PWD}@{BASE}"
    return {"http": url, "https": url}

# new IP per request
requests.get(url, proxies=proxy(), timeout=30)

# same IP for a multi-step flow
s = requests.Session()
s.proxies.update(proxy(country="US", session=7))
s.get(login_url); s.post(login_url, data=creds)

Reuse a Session object per worker. It keeps the connection to our endpoint alive and cuts the handshake from every request.
Set timeout on every call. Without it requests waits forever, and a stalled residential route will hang a worker for the rest of the run.
Send Accept-Encoding: gzip. Residential is billed per gigabyte and an HTML page compresses three to four times.
Do not put credentials in HTTP_PROXY environment variables on shared machines. Every subprocess inherits them.

What breaks in requests specifically

socks5:// leaks your DNS

With socks5:// the hostname is resolved locally, so your resolver sees every target. Use socks5h:// and the lookup happens through the proxy.

verify=False hides real failures

People disable certificate checks to silence an error that was actually a 407 in disguise. Fix the credentials instead.

One Session shared across threads

requests.Session is not thread-safe. Give each thread its own, or connections cross and responses arrive on the wrong caller.

Retrying without changing the address

A 429 means that address is done for now. Retry through a new one rather than the same login.

Notes & tips

•Verify proxy connectivity: curl -x http://user:pass@proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000 https://httpbin.org/ip
•For SSL verification issues, set verify=False in requests (not recommended for production) or add the proxy CA certificate.
•aiohttp proxy configuration uses connector=aiohttp.TCPConnector() and proxy=proxy_url in session.get().

FAQ

How do I use rotating proxies with Python requests?

Set the proxies dict with your SotaProxy endpoint once. Rotation happens server-side - you do not need to change the proxy URL between requests.

Does SotaProxy work with Scrapy?

Yes. Set DOWNLOADER_MIDDLEWARES and HTTP_PROXY in your settings.py, or use the rotating proxy middleware package.

How do I handle proxy authentication errors?

Check that the username and password in the proxy URL are URL-encoded if they contain special characters. Test with curl first to isolate authentication from code issues.

Related integrations

Development

Scrapy

Development

Playwright

Development

Selenium

Learn more

Proxy Server HTTP Proxy SOCKS5 Proxy Rotating Proxy Proxy Authentication

Get your proxy credentials

Get started