User friendly proxy configuration

[Jeandet Alexis]

Hi,

I try to convince my colleagues to switch to Fedora as much as I can,
they all like it! But in my lab we connect through a web proxy and I
have to say that changing the config on both gnome and yum/dnf is quite
boring. Also new linux users are sometime afraid when I tell them "you
just need to edit the /etc/something.conf".
So my question is: Is there any way to have a centralised proxy config
with a simple GUI? Does some of you have some tricks?
I tried to look at some solution running a local light proxy on the
machine but it doesn't forward all the protocols. It also seems that DNF
and YUM doesn't accept pac files.


Best regards,
Alexis.

[Bill Shirley]

The OP was talking about running a centralized proxy.  Put this in /etc/profile or
/etc/inputrc (can't remember which) 
per machine.

Sorry not to have spelled it out.

Bill


On 11/18/2014 4:22 AM, Cameron Simpson wrote:
>  On 18Nov2014 02:31, Bill Shirley <bshirley(a)memphis.apirx.biz&gt;
> wrote:
> > You can put this in your ~/.bashrc:
> > export http_proxy="http://127.0.0.1:3128"
> > export ftp_proxy="ftp://127.0.0.1:3128"
>
>  They both need to be "http://127.0.0.1:3128/"; the proxy protocol is HTTP,
> hence the same scheme for each. Also 
>  https_proxy. Of course, adjusted for whatever is correct.
>
> > I'm not sure how many utilities use it but I think wget does.
>
>  Quite a few.
>
>  However, the point of the OP was to set this at a system level as a default for many
> machines, so the .bashrc is 
>  pretty much the worst place to want to put this, being a per-user setting (and only for
> those using bash, and only for 
>  settings where that is involved in invoking applications).
>
>  Cheers,
>  Cameron Simpson <cs(a)zip.com.au&gt;
>
>  I thought back to other headaches from my past and sneered at their
>  ineffectiveness.        - Harry Harrison

[Bill Shirley]

You can put this in your ~/.bashrc:
export http_proxy="http://127.0.0.1:3128"
export ftp_proxy="ftp://127.0.0.1:3128"

I'm not sure how many utilities use it but I think wget does.

Bill


On 11/16/2014 8:18 AM, Alexis Jeandet wrote:
>  Le 15/11/2014 07:17, Tim a écrit :
> > On Fri, 2014-11-14 at 13:55 +0100, Alexis Jeandet wrote:
> >> my question was more about apps like YUM/DNF which doesn't care about
> >> gnome config and doesn't like pac files. My thoughts are that I should
> >> write maybe a simple scripts triggered by network manager which
> >> configures everything depending on the current host IP or something
> >> like this.
> > Have you looked through man yum.conf to see the proxy options?  Perhaps
> > you could write a network manager script to modify the yum.conf file
> > each time you go online, and something checks for the pac file.
>  This is the first thing I did, since YUM and DNF doesn't accept .pac
>  file, the current solution is that each time you change you change your
>  network you have to edit /etc/yum.conf or /etc/dnf/dnf.conf .
>  Anyway I think I got my answer, I will write the script.
> > The alternative option, if you don't want users to go around customising
> > things, is to use a transparent proxy, which everything goes through,
> > without option.
>  I do agree, but sadly my lab doesn't manage the proxy, we have to deal
>  with it and as it is.
> >

[Jeandet Alexis]

Le 15/11/2014 07:17, Tim a écrit :
>  On Fri, 2014-11-14 at 13:55 +0100, Alexis Jeandet wrote:
> > my question was more about apps like YUM/DNF which doesn't care about
> > gnome config and doesn't like pac files. My thoughts are that I should
> > write maybe a simple scripts triggered by network manager which
> > configures everything depending on the current host IP or something
> > like this.
>  Have you looked through man yum.conf to see the proxy options?  Perhaps
>  you could write a network manager script to modify the yum.conf file
>  each time you go online, and something checks for the pac file. 
This is the first
thing I did, since YUM and DNF doesn't accept .pac
file, the current solution is that each time you change you change your
network you have to edit /etc/yum.conf or /etc/dnf/dnf.conf .
Anyway I think I got my answer, I will write the script.
>  The alternative option, if you don't want users to go around customising
>  things, is to use a transparent proxy, which everything goes through,
>  without option. 
I do agree, but sadly my lab doesn't manage the proxy, we have
to deal
with it and as it is.
>

[Tim]

On Fri, 2014-11-14 at 13:55 +0100, Alexis Jeandet wrote:
>  my question was more about apps like YUM/DNF which doesn't care
> about
>  gnome config and doesn't like pac files. My thoughts are that I should
>  write maybe a simple scripts triggered by network manager which
>  configures everything depending on the current host IP or something
>  like this. 
Have you looked through man yum.conf to see the proxy options?  Perhaps
you could write a network manager script to modify the yum.conf file
each time you go online, and something checks for the pac file.

The alternative option, if you don't want users to go around customising
things, is to use a transparent proxy, which everything goes through,
without option.


-- 
tim@localhost ~]$ uname -rsvp

Linux 3.17.2-200.fc20.i686 #1 SMP Tue Nov 4 18:28:00 UTC 2014 i686

All mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted, there is no point trying
to privately email me, I will only read messages posted to the public lists.

George Orwell's '1984' was supposed to be a warning against tyranny, not
a set of instructions for supposedly democratic governments.

[Jeandet Alexis]

Hi Tim,

Thanks, it's what we already use on gnome, my question was more about
apps like YUM/DNF which doesn't care about gnome config and doesn't like
pac files.
My thoughts are that I should write maybe a simple scripts triggered by
network manager which configures everything depending on the current
host IP or something like this.

Best regards,
Alexis.
Le 14/11/2014 13:04, Tim a écrit :
>  On Fri, 2014-11-14 at 11:01 +0100, Alexis Jeandet wrote:
> > So my question is: Is there any way to have a centralised proxy config
> > with a simple GUI?
>  If you look through the configuration menus (of course this is harder if
>  you use a desktop that has abandoned putting things in organised menus),
>  you'll find an item called something like "network proxy."  It lets that
>  user specify a proxy, and various applications will make use of that
>  information.  Not all, but this is no worse than Windows, where you have
>  to separately configure a plethora of internet applications.
>

[Tim]

On Fri, 2014-11-14 at 11:01 +0100, Alexis Jeandet wrote:
>  So my question is: Is there any way to have a centralised proxy
> config
>  with a simple GUI? 
If you look through the configuration menus (of course this is harder if
you use a desktop that has abandoned putting things in organised menus),
you'll find an item called something like "network proxy."  It lets that
user specify a proxy, and various applications will make use of that
information.  Not all, but this is no worse than Windows, where you have
to separately configure a plethora of internet applications.

-- 
tim@localhost ~]$ uname -rsvp

Linux 3.16.7-200.fc20.i686 #1 SMP Thu Oct 30 18:40:30 UTC 2014 i686

All mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted, there is no point trying
to privately email me, I will only read messages posted to the public lists.

George Orwell's '1984' was supposed to be a warning against tyranny, not
a set of instructions for supposedly democratic governments.

[Cameron Simpson]

On 18Nov2014 02:31, Bill Shirley <bshirley(a)memphis.apirx.biz&gt; wrote:
> You can put this in your ~/.bashrc:
> export http_proxy="http://127.0.0.1:3128"
> export ftp_proxy="ftp://127.0.0.1:3128" 
They both need to be "http://127.0.0.1:3128/"; the proxy protocol is HTTP, 
hence the same scheme for each. Also https_proxy. Of course, adjusted for 
whatever is correct.

> I'm not sure how many utilities use it but I think wget does.
Quite a few.

However, the point of the OP was to set this at a system level as a default for 
many machines, so the .bashrc is pretty much the worst place to want to put 
this, being a per-user setting (and only for those using bash, and only for 
settings where that is involved in invoking applications).

Cheers,
Cameron Simpson <cs(a)zip.com.au&gt;

I thought back to other headaches from my past and sneered at their
ineffectiveness.        - Harry Harrison

[Cameron Simpson]

On 14Nov2014 13:55, Alexis Jeandet <alexis.jeandet(a)member.fsf.org&gt; wrote:
> Thanks, it's what we already use on gnome, my question was more
> about
> apps like YUM/DNF which doesn't care about gnome config and doesn't like
> pac files.
> My thoughts are that I should write maybe a simple scripts triggered by
> network manager which configures everything depending on the current
> host IP or something like this. 
You can tell DHCP to issue a proxy server specification.

Whether Linux distros have enough cluefulness to use that by default is unknown 
to me, but things like phones etc generally do. You need to define an 
additional DHCP field and fill that in with the URL of a proxy.pac file 
(standard piece of javascript which tells browsers which proxy settings to use 
on a per URL basis).

Have a look at this:

  http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/ProxyAutoConfig#DHCP_Server_configuration

Cheers,
Cameron Simpson <cs(a)zip.com.au&gt;

"I don't see much sense in that," said Rabbit.
"No," said Pooh humbly, "there isn't.  But there was _going_ to be when
I
  began it.  It's just that something happened to it on the way."