A sole, standard proxy library for Fedora

[Nils Philippsen]

On Sat, 2006-05-27 at 17:24 +0100, Cam wrote:
> Philip
> 
> > I have a laptop that travels with me from work (where there's the
> > use of web proxies) to home (where I don't), and was overwhelmed
> > by the number of config files that I have to switch over every time
> > I move from one place to the other.
> 
> How about having a lightweight proxy on every machine. All configuration 
> should point to the local proxy.
> 
> When the network changes, only the proxy need be informed of the changes.
> 
> It's a horrible hack, I know :) but configuration in the environment 
> isn't dynamic enough, and hell will freeze over before any new 
> configuration scheme reaches the level of acceptance that http_proxy in 
> env has.

Seconded. I have used privoxy to accomodate my laptop to several
networks where some require use of a proxy, some offer a proxy and some
don't. Drawbacks of using privoxy are:

- when changing settings, they only took effect on the second connection
afterwards
- privoxy can't proxy FTP URLs, you have to use a local squid if there
aren't any other proxies available if you want to do FTP (yuck)
- you have to configure away any "privacy enhancing" settings of privoxy
if you don't want them

Nils
-- 
     Nils Philippsen    /    Red Hat    /    nphilipp at redhat.com
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary
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