Invisible proxy
October 8, 2007 5:00 PM Subscribe
My university requires me to use a proxy config file to connect to the internet. Not all applications support this. Is there any way to fool my computer into thinking that I have a direct connection to the internet?
Hello all.
I recently enrolled at university and in order to get internet in our rooms we have to get our browser to use a proxy config file.
This is fine for web browsing but not all applications support this. Is there any way to make my computer think that I actually have a direct connection to the internet?
Is it as simple as connecting an ethernet router to the ethernet plug in my room then connecting my computer to that?
Thanks in advance
Hello all.
I recently enrolled at university and in order to get internet in our rooms we have to get our browser to use a proxy config file.
This is fine for web browsing but not all applications support this. Is there any way to make my computer think that I actually have a direct connection to the internet?
Is it as simple as connecting an ethernet router to the ethernet plug in my room then connecting my computer to that?
Thanks in advance
Find out what the proxy config file actually does i.e. which proxy it's telling you to use (just open it in a text editor and have a look at the script), then configure your browser or whatever to use that proxy without the script. I often find that plain vanilla proxy settings work where proxy config files don't, even when the proxy config file is set up for that identical proxy.
Most places that use proxy config files are doing so just to save themselves having to update a fleet of clients every time they set up a new proxy server; it's pretty rare to find one that actually does anything complicated. But if you do find more than one proxy listed in the config file, and if it really does matter which one you use, the SwitchProxy extension for Firefox goes some way toward making that less painful to do by hand. Turn off the big ugly toolbar and switch proxies using the right-click menu it installs in the status bar.
posted by flabdablet at 8:04 PM on October 8, 2007
Most places that use proxy config files are doing so just to save themselves having to update a fleet of clients every time they set up a new proxy server; it's pretty rare to find one that actually does anything complicated. But if you do find more than one proxy listed in the config file, and if it really does matter which one you use, the SwitchProxy extension for Firefox goes some way toward making that less painful to do by hand. Turn off the big ugly toolbar and switch proxies using the right-click menu it installs in the status bar.
posted by flabdablet at 8:04 PM on October 8, 2007
I think he means he has other applications, that is, other than web browsing, that he wants to configure. I'm guessing stuff like bit torrent clients, irc, instant messaging, etc. If your whole network is behind a firewall and the web proxy is the only way to get out, there might not be much you can do.
posted by RustyBrooks at 9:00 PM on October 8, 2007
posted by RustyBrooks at 9:00 PM on October 8, 2007
That is, it's not your computer that's confused, most likely the university has made it impossible for you to directly connect to the outside world.
posted by RustyBrooks at 9:01 PM on October 8, 2007
posted by RustyBrooks at 9:01 PM on October 8, 2007
Using manual proxy settings instead of the supplied autoproxy script is not a sysadmin-hostile act (unless you pester them when it stops working). There are various means of bypassing firewalls etc. for non-Web stuff, if that's what you're asking how to do, but all of them are likely to violate one or more of your university network's terms of service. Your first stop should be to your university IT support people, to find out exactly what is and isn't allowed.
posted by flabdablet at 12:02 AM on October 9, 2007
posted by flabdablet at 12:02 AM on October 9, 2007
ive used a program called freecap
http://www.freecap.ru/eng/?p=index
which allows you to run a program that doesnt support proxies through it and it runs them via the proxy. very useful for those applications which dont support proxy settings themselves.
posted by dnc at 1:26 AM on October 9, 2007
http://www.freecap.ru/eng/?p=index
which allows you to run a program that doesnt support proxies through it and it runs them via the proxy. very useful for those applications which dont support proxy settings themselves.
posted by dnc at 1:26 AM on October 9, 2007
Response by poster: @ flabdablet
Yes, that is basically what I need to do. How do I do it? Some IM programs don't work, I can't even install Java because the installer doesn't support proxies! The freecap program looks good but I am running Ubuntu, so it won't work on that.
Surely if I plug a router into my ethernet socket in my room and then connect my computer to that, the computer would see it as a 'direct connection' because it would be directly connected to the router, but the router would have to handle the proxy requests.
posted by edbyford at 3:04 AM on October 9, 2007
Yes, that is basically what I need to do. How do I do it? Some IM programs don't work, I can't even install Java because the installer doesn't support proxies! The freecap program looks good but I am running Ubuntu, so it won't work on that.
Surely if I plug a router into my ethernet socket in my room and then connect my computer to that, the computer would see it as a 'direct connection' because it would be directly connected to the router, but the router would have to handle the proxy requests.
posted by edbyford at 3:04 AM on October 9, 2007
Forget about plugging in routers and so forth. All that's going to do is add another potential source of brokenness to an already broken situation. It's not going to get you past the firewall that's already between your University network and the rest of the Internet, and it's that firewall that's actually your problem.
Depending on University IT policy, you might find that some ports are actually open and that you can get to some services directly. If they're forcing you to use a proxy for the Web, they're doing that by dropping outgoing requests to Web port numbers from any machine except their own Web proxy.
The other kind of proxy you might need to use is a SOCKS proxy. This is the kind of proxy that FreeCap talks to transparently. It will allow you to talk to hosts outside your firewall via TCP or UDP only.
You will probably find that you need to supply some kind of authentication (like a username and password) to establish a connection to a web or SOCKS proxy. This allows the University to define different kinds of outside access policy for different kinds of user.
I don't know of a consumer grade router that can transparently proxify Web requests for you. It's generally a better idea just to persuade Ubuntu to work the way you want. Because it's Ubuntu, this is pretty much always possible.
If you can't connect directly to instant messaging systems, try Meebo for a start, and post back if there's something specific that doesn't work for you.
As for installing stuff: most of the time this will Just Work, provided you've told the package manager about your proxy (in Synaptic, go to Settings->Preferences->Network and fill in the HTTP and FTP proxy details). However, some Ubuntu installation packages, notably flashplugin-nonfree, need to fetch extra stuff during the setup phase. The tool they typically use to do this is wget, and wget doesn't know about Synaptic's proxy settings.
You can fix this by opening /home/edbyford/.profile in a text editor, adding the following lines at the end, then logging out and in again:
There are quite a few Linux programs that expect to find proxy settings in those environment variables in that format, and you may find a bunch of other things that Just Work once you've done that too.
posted by flabdablet at 7:22 PM on October 9, 2007
Depending on University IT policy, you might find that some ports are actually open and that you can get to some services directly. If they're forcing you to use a proxy for the Web, they're doing that by dropping outgoing requests to Web port numbers from any machine except their own Web proxy.
The other kind of proxy you might need to use is a SOCKS proxy. This is the kind of proxy that FreeCap talks to transparently. It will allow you to talk to hosts outside your firewall via TCP or UDP only.
You will probably find that you need to supply some kind of authentication (like a username and password) to establish a connection to a web or SOCKS proxy. This allows the University to define different kinds of outside access policy for different kinds of user.
I don't know of a consumer grade router that can transparently proxify Web requests for you. It's generally a better idea just to persuade Ubuntu to work the way you want. Because it's Ubuntu, this is pretty much always possible.
If you can't connect directly to instant messaging systems, try Meebo for a start, and post back if there's something specific that doesn't work for you.
As for installing stuff: most of the time this will Just Work, provided you've told the package manager about your proxy (in Synaptic, go to Settings->Preferences->Network and fill in the HTTP and FTP proxy details). However, some Ubuntu installation packages, notably flashplugin-nonfree, need to fetch extra stuff during the setup phase. The tool they typically use to do this is wget, and wget doesn't know about Synaptic's proxy settings.
You can fix this by opening /home/edbyford/.profile in a text editor, adding the following lines at the end, then logging out and in again:
# proxy server settings for wget and friends
export http_proxy=http://yourusername:yourpassword@your.proxy.address:yourproxyport
export ftp_proxy=http://yourusername:yourpassword@your.proxy.address:yourproxyportThere are quite a few Linux programs that expect to find proxy settings in those environment variables in that format, and you may find a bunch of other things that Just Work once you've done that too.
posted by flabdablet at 7:22 PM on October 9, 2007
Just a thought, but if your using Linux...
What about routing all of your outbound port 80 traffic to the proxy server with iptables to turn it into transparent proxy?
Think you need CONFIG_IP_NF_NAT_LOCAL turned on in the Kernel for it to work locally though...
posted by vitrum at 12:45 AM on October 10, 2007
What about routing all of your outbound port 80 traffic to the proxy server with iptables to turn it into transparent proxy?
Think you need CONFIG_IP_NF_NAT_LOCAL turned on in the Kernel for it to work locally though...
posted by vitrum at 12:45 AM on October 10, 2007
Given that it's a university proxy, and almost certainly requires authentication to nail up a connection, I think that's probably likely to break more things than it fixes.
posted by flabdablet at 3:51 AM on October 11, 2007
posted by flabdablet at 3:51 AM on October 11, 2007
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posted by dereisbaer at 5:13 PM on October 8, 2007