Proxy does not work using sudo

Question

I set the proxy using system setting -> Network -> Network Proxy. I then clicked on "Apply system wide", put my password, and nothing else.

michele@rserver-VirtualBox:~$ wget http://bbc.co.uk
--2014-09-30 13:02:20--  http://bbc.co.uk/
Resolving datapx01-wcg (datapx01-wcg)... 10.123.7.31
Connecting to datapx01-wcg (datapx01-wcg)|10.123.7.31|:8080... connected.
Proxy request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ [following]
--2014-09-30 13:02:21--  http://www.bbc.co.uk/
Reusing existing connection to datapx01-wcg:8080.
Proxy request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 103020 (101K) [text/html]
Saving to: ‘index.html’

100%[======================================>] 103,020      190KB/s   in 0.5s   

2014-09-30 13:02:21 (190 KB/s) - ‘index.html’ saved [103020/103020]

Instead using sudo:

michele@rserver-VirtualBox:~$ sudo wget http://bbc.co.uk
[sudo] password for michele: 
--2014-09-30 13:02:30--  http://bbc.co.uk/
Resolving bbc.co.uk (bbc.co.uk)... 212.58.246.104, 212.58.244.20, 212.58.246.103, ...
Connecting to bbc.co.uk (bbc.co.uk)|212.58.246.104|:80... failed: Connection timed out.

I am on 14.04 and I didn't have this issue before upgrading from 12.04 yesterday. Please tell me what other info you need.

Why do you want to use sudo here while it works well without that? — αғsнιη, Sep 30 '14 at 12:11
Check your /etc/apt/apt.conf file and see if your proxy setting is also appear there. — αғsнιη, Sep 30 '14 at 12:18
that is simply a reproducible example... my server runs application on behalf of different users, so I need the proxy to work for all users. — Michele, Sep 30 '14 at 12:19
To workaround, use it like this: sudo env HTTP_PROXY=http://proxy.example.com:port wget http://bbc.co.uk. — s3lph, Sep 30 '14 at 12:22
Did you try @the_Seppi's suggestion? When you run sudo, environment is restricted. — Lety, Sep 30 '14 at 18:29
Did you try to configure and uncomment http_proxy in /etc/wgetrc file? — Lety, Sep 30 '14 at 18:57
You need to make some changes in your /etc/sudoers file. Take a look at this: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2199416. — Jones03, Mar 24 '16 at 06:02

score 13 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 25 '16 at 11:19

13

In case anybody wonders:

The issue here, is that when sudoing, a newenvironment is loaded, meaning that http_proxy is no longer set.

To resolve this issue you can add Defaults env_keep += "http_proxy https_proxy" to your /etc/sudoers file in order to keep those variables when switching to the secure path.

Reference: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EnvironmentVariables

answered Jul 25 '16 at 11:19

daniel f.

846

super answer!! worked in CentOS 7 as well. – Ubuntuser Apr 09 '18 at 08:52
Just a note: this would still requires the respective environment variables to be set inside the profile of the user, who belongs to the sudoers. Add export http_proxy=... and export https_proxy=... to .bashrc or whatever your user's profile file is called. Also I recommend putting no_proxy, which is quite common for company networks, where internal network locations (e.g. intranet web portal) often not only do not require but will not work if going through proxy. – rbaleksandar Apr 01 '22 at 06:21

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 30 '14 at 12:22

1

Open /etc/apt/apt.conf file in Terminal and set your proxy setting as following:

Acquire::http::proxy "http://user:pass@host:port/";
Acquire::https::proxy "https://user:pass@host:port/";
Acquire::ftp::proxy "ftp://user:pass@host:port/";
Acquire::socks::proxy "socks://user:pass@host:port/";

Replace user with your username, pass with your password, host with proxy-webaddress and port with a portnumber.

answered Sep 30 '14 at 12:22

αғsнιη

35,660

Those 4 lines are already there. But without the username and password. I ll try adding them – Michele Sep 30 '14 at 12:39
Just did, still the same – Michele Sep 30 '14 at 13:45
@Michele run echo $http_proxy in terminal did you see the your user and pass and other configure? – αғsнιη Sep 30 '14 at 14:02
I just get the http://proxy:port/ – Michele Sep 30 '14 at 14:04
@Michele then your user and pass not set correctly!! – αғsнιη Sep 30 '14 at 14:07
triple checked they are fine – Michele Sep 30 '14 at 14:08
did you restart the system – αғsнιη Sep 30 '14 at 14:09
No, I thought it was a Windows thing... :-) I'll try now – Michele Sep 30 '14 at 14:10
Nada... still the same. I just read that sudo does a reset of the environment variables and things like http_proxy don't get used – Michele Sep 30 '14 at 14:14
@Michele Sorry but I don't have any idea check here http://askubuntu.com/questions/175172/how-do-i-configure-proxies-in-ubuntu-server-or-minimal-cli-ubuntu and here http://askubuntu.com/questions/15719/where-are-the-system-wide-proxy-server-settings and also here http://askubuntu.com/questions/82880/how-do-i-set-a-system-wide-proxy-with-a-username-and-password – αғsнιη Sep 30 '14 at 14:18

Proxy does not work using sudo

2 Answers2