What is the role of a Proxy server in a network?

• A. To act as an intermediary for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers.
• B. To assign IP addresses to devices on the LAN automatically.
• C. To monitor and log user activity for policy enforcement.
• D. To decrypt encrypted traffic for the network administrator.

Answer: (A)

A proxy server sits between clients and the resources they request, acting as an intermediary that forwards client requests to the target server and then returns the responses back to the client. This mediation is the defining function of a proxy and enables features like content caching to speed up repeated requests, as well as applying access policies and filtering.

Assigning IP addresses automatically is the job of a DHCP server, not a proxy. Monitoring and logging can be a capability of a proxy, but it’s an auxiliary function rather than the core role. Decrypting encrypted traffic is not a standard, everyday role of a proxy and is only done in specialized setups (TLS interception), which goes beyond the typical proxy function.