How to make your Linux applications use proxy
Hi,
If you are frustrated by Linux and your college’s network, which is windows based or sysadmins can help you with windows only, and sysadmins for a request call, replies as “use Windows”. If you are in a university then I am sure they use that damned( or good) software called as proxy (squid proxy to be specific). And you are a linux newbie then, here are some quick tips for you.
TIP # 1
You want your download manager (wget), updates by apt or aptitude to use a http proxy, you can use the following commands to export proxy to your environment
export http_proxy=http://user:password@proxy:port/
or
export http_proxy=http://proxy:port/
Things to note here are
- Type the command as it is, don’t leave unnecessary spaces.
- Username/password is the username and password you use to access the proxy, that is the same password which you type when you access internet using a web-browser. If you don’t use one, then use the second version of the command
- Proxy and port are the values that are the same as used in your web-browser, or you can ask check them out with your sysadmin, or anyone who has a working internet on the same network.
After you do this you can use apt or aptitude and it will use the http proxy you specified!
TIP # 2
For GNOME users : GNOME allows users to specify a proxy from a GUI, which you can find in
Preferences –> Network Proxy
It also allows you to specify username/password, by clicking on “Details”
TIP # 3
Using socks proxy with evolution (the e-mail client)You need a package named tsocks
sudo apt-get install tsocks
for Ubuntu users
or you can download it from here, http://tsocks.sourceforge.net
then just type
tsocks evolution
you might want to read the man page for configurations too.
So, that’s it. I hope it makes your life a little easier with Linux on network. Tell us about your experiences of using Linux behind proxies. Remember google search is your best resource!