How to configure proxy settings on Ubuntu 18.04 – Serverlab
Overview
Proxies are commonly found on business networks, but they are increasingly becoming popular for personal use. The following tutorial will show you multiple ways of setting your proxy in Ubuntu 18. 04, allowing you to browse the Internet with additional privacy.
This tutorial will cover the following three areas. Use the one the fits your needs.
Desktop: learn how to set your proxy settings from within the desktop.
Terminal: set environment variables for your proxy server when using a terminal or console.
All users: setting the proxy settings for all users on the system.
Ubuntu Desktop Network Settings
Ubuntu 18. 04 Network Proxy Settings
To configure your proxy settings in Ubuntu Desktop you need to access Network Settings. Within there you can set a number of parameters, including proxy settings for HTTP traffic, HTTPS traffic, and FTP traffic.
Equally as important as setting your Internet proxy settings is setting Ignore Hosts, to prevent local traffic from going through your proxy server.
To set your proxy in Ubuntu Desktop, do the following:
Open the Application launcher by clicking the “Show Applications” icon, located at the bottom of the left-hand quick application access bar.
Type in ‘Settings’
Click the ‘Settings’ icon.
From the left-hand navigation, click the Network tab.
Network Settings Configuration Screen
Click the cog icon near the Network Proxy label.
Network settings proxy icon
A dialog box will appear where you can set your proxy settings.
In the appropriate text fields, enter your proxy server’s hostname or IP address. Ensure you change the port number to match your proxy server’s, too.
Ubuntu Proxy Settings Dialog Box
Close the dialog box. Your settings will be automatically saved.
Ubuntu Terminal Proxy Settings
Like every Linux distribution, proxy settings can be set using environment variables. There are a number of variables available to use, ranging from HTTP traffic to FTP traffic.
Proxy settings can be either persistent by setting them in your profile, or non-persistent by setting them from the shell session.
Proxy Environment Variables
Variable
Description
_proxy
Proxy server for HTTP Traffic.
Proxy server for HTTPS traffic
ftp_proxy
Proxy server for FTP traffic
no_proxy
Patterns for IP addresses or domain names that shouldn’t use the proxy
The value for every proxy setting, except for no_proxy, uses the same template. They all require a hostname, but you may optionally specify a proxy server port and your user credentials if required to do so. For example:
proxy_=username:[email protected]:port
Single User Temporary Proxy Settings
You may not always want to force Internet traffic through a proxy. Sometimes you need to override existing settings, and you can do this safely by setting the proxy environment variables from the command line.
The following will set a proxy for HTTP and HTTPS, while preventing local traffic from going through the proxy. Our example proxy server endpoint is for HTTP traffic and for HTTPS.
Open a Terminal window where you need proxy access.
Set and export the HTTP_PROXY variable.
export HTTP_PROXY=user:[email protected]:8080
Set and export the HTTPS_PROXY variable.
export HTTPS_PROXY=user:[email protected]:8081
Set and export the NO_PROXY variable to prevent local traffic from being sent to the proxy.
export NO_PROXY=localhost, 127. 0. 1, *
Single User Persistent Proxy Settings
Open your bash profile file into a text editor.
vi ~/. bash_profile
Add the following lines, modifying them to match your environment.
export _proxy=username:[email protected]:8080
export _proxy=username:[email protected]:8081
exprot no_proxy=localhost, 127. 1, *
Save your settings.
The proxy settings will be applied the next time you start a session, by logging into the server or opening a new Terminal window from a Desktop.
To force apply your new proxy settings in the current Terminal session, execute the source command against your bash profile.
source ~/. bash_profile
All Users
You will need administrative rights to perform this task. All versions of Ubuntu and Debian have a file called /etc/environment. Within this file, we can set global variables and other such things.
Similar to how you set proxy settings for your own local proxy, we’ll be adding the environment variables to this file. The variables will be set when a new user session is created, which is to say when you log in next.
Using an administrator account, open /etc/environment into a text editor.
sudo vi /etc/environment
Add the following lines, modifying them to fit your environment. Username and password may be omitted, if not required.
_proxy=”
ftp_proxy=”
no_proxy=”
For example, if you do not need to enter a username or password, and your proxy server is at port 8080, and you do not want local traffic going through the proxy, you would enter the following:
_proxy=”
ftp_proxy=”
no_proxy=”localhost, 127. 1, ::1
Save your changes and exit the text editor.
How To Use Proxy Server To Access Internet at Shell Prompt …
I‘m behind a squid proxy server. How do I access internet via proxy server when I use wget, lynx and other utilities from a shell prompt on a Linux or Unix-like systems?
Linux and UNIX-like systems has environment variable called _proxy. It allows you to connect text based session and/or applications via the proxy server. All you need is proxy server IP address (URL) and port values. This variable is almost used by all utilities such as elinks, lynx, wget, curl and others commands.
Tutorial details
Difficulty level Easy Root privileges No Requirements Linux/Unix shell promot Est. reading time 2 mintues
Set _proxy shell variable on Linux/OS X/Unix bash shell
Type the following command to set proxy server:
$ export _proxy=server-ip:port/
$ export _proxy=$ export _proxy=If the proxy server requires a username and password then add these to the URL. For example, to include the username foo and the password bar:
$ export _proxy=foo:[email protected]:port/
$ export _proxy=foo:[email protected] 0. 1:3128/
$ export _proxy=
How do I setup proxy variable for all users?
To setup the proxy environment variable as a global variable, open /etc/profile file:
# vi /etc/profile
Add the following information:
export _proxy=OR
export _proxy=
Save and close the file.
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A note about enabling proxy access to a specific user
To enable proxy access for a specific user, add the lines user shell profile. For the default bash shell, the profile is the file. bash_profile. For example, enable proxy access for a specifc user called vivek, type:
$ vi $HOME/. bash_profile
OR
# vi /home/vivek/. bash_profile
Append the following line:
How do I use password protected proxy server using various command line options?
You can simply use wget command as follows:
$ wget –proxy-user=USERNAME –proxy-password=PASSWORD Lynx command has the following syntax:
$ lynx -pauth=USER:PASSWORD Curl command has following syntax:
$ curl –proxy-user user:password
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What are HTTP and the HTTP Proxy? – WatchGuard Technologies
What are HTTP and the HTTP Proxy?
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)
is a protocol for sending and displaying files (text, graphic images, sound, video,
and other multimedia files) on the Internet. The HTTP Proxy is a high performance
content filter. It examines Web traffic to identify suspicious content, which
can be a spyware, malformed content, or another type of attack. It can also protect
your Web server from attacks from the external network using protocol anomaly
detection rules to identify and deny suspicious packets.
You can configure the HTTP Proxy to:
Only allow content that matches RFC specifications for Web server and clients
Restrict the content the Firebox allows into your network, based upon fully a qualified domain name, path name, file name or extension as it appears in the URL.
Restrict the content the Firebox allows into your network based upon MIME type.
Block downloads of any unique file type, including client-side executable files like Java and ActiveX, by file header (hexadecimal signature) pattern match.
Examine the HTTP header to make sure it is not from a known source of suspicious content
The HTTP proxy operates between the sending Web server and your receiving Web client. It processes the HTTP protocol line-by-line for any potentially harmful content before sending it to an internal Web client. It also acts as a buffer between your Web server and potentially harmful Web clients by enforcing HTTP RFC compliance and preventing potential buffer overflow attacks.
When you add an HTTP proxy policy to your Firebox configuration, you get access to two proxy actions that are included with the product: an HTTP server ruleset template and an HTTP client ruleset template. You can use these rulesets without changing them or you can use the rulesets as a base for a ruleset to meet the needs of your organization. This module shows you how to customize the rulesets in these two proxy actions.
HTTP-Client
The HTTP-Client proxy action is configured to give comprehensive protection to your network from the content your trusted users download from Web servers. An optional extension to the HTTP-Proxy (WebBlocker) is available to control the categories of Web sites trusted users are allowed to browse to at different times of the day.
HTTP-Server
The HTTP-Server proxy action is configured by default to allow most HTTP connections through to your public Web server, but stop any attempts to put files on your Web server or delete files from your Web server.
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Frequently Asked Questions about linux http proxy settings
What is HTTP proxy Linux?
Linux and UNIX-like systems has environment variable called http_proxy. It allows you to connect text based session and/or applications via the proxy server. All you need is proxy server IP address (URL) and port values. This variable is almost used by all utilities such as elinks, lynx, wget, curl and others commands.Jul 13, 2021
What is HTTP proxy setting?
The HTTP Proxy is a high performance content filter. It examines Web traffic to identify suspicious content, which can be a spyware, malformed content, or another type of attack. … You can configure the HTTP Proxy to: Only allow content that matches RFC specifications for Web server and clients.
How do I enable HTTP proxy settings?
How to set up a proxy server in WindowsPress the Windows + I keys simultaneously to access the Windows Settings menu.On Windows 10, click Settings > Network & Internet > Proxy. … Under the Manual Setup section, set the “Use a Proxy Server” toggle to On.More items…•Mar 11, 2020
