How to make curl use proxy automatically

Question

Today I configured the PC of my company to setup a proxy and it worked because I can wget web page via proxy.

What I did is set http_proxy, https_proxy and ftp_proxy in the ~/.bashrc and in the ~/.wgetrc.

However, when I tried to curl www.google.fr, it blocked and timeout.

curl --proxy $http_proxy www.google.fr worked as expected.

Is it possible to make curl use the proxy automatically?

Set the proxy address in ~/.curlrc as follows: proxy = <proxy_host>:<proxy_port>. Let me know if this works out and I will make it into a 'formal' answer... — andrew.46, Jan 24 '18 at 08:16
@muru export http_proxy="http://account:passwd@proxy.xxx.com:8080" export https_proxy=$http_proxy — Yves, Jan 24 '18 at 08:58
@muru ...... Ooooo..... I made a mistake: I forgot the key word export... — Yves, Jan 24 '18 at 08:59
@andrew.46 @muru such a stupid question... @andrew.46 please make an answer, at least, I didn't know to use .curlrc — Yves, Jan 24 '18 at 09:04

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 05 '18 at 21:14

5

Perhaps the easiest way to get curl to use a proxy is to add the details into ~/.curlrc file. The syntax is as follows:

proxy = <proxy_host>:<proxy_port>

This can alternatively be set as an environmental variable but IMHO using ~/.curlrc is the most direct and least error prone method.

edited Jul 05 '18 at 21:14

tetebueno

163
5

answered Jan 24 '18 at 09:00

andrew.46

38,003
27
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score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 15 '18 at 17:27

0

Some proxies require specific authentication headers to be set, so be aware of those as well. In my case, it's --proxy-ntlm in the example below:

curl -x webproxy.net:8080 -U usernaname:password http://google.com --proxy-ntlm

Bu there are other options:

--proxy-digest and --proxy-negotiate

Lastly, cURL has a super friendly doc page, so be sure to check it out.

edited May 15 '18 at 17:27

K7AAY

17,202

answered May 15 '18 at 16:31

Ostati

101

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 13 '21 at 06:28

The client curl (naturally) uses the library libcurl under the hood.

In the context of proxies the libcurl api documentation among other things states:

Environment variables

libcurl respects the proxy environment variables named http_proxy, ftp_proxy, sftp_proxy etc. If set, libcurl will use the specified proxy for that URL scheme. So for a "FTP://" URL, the ftp_proxy is considered. all_proxy is used if no protocol specific proxy was set.

If no_proxy (or NO_PROXY) is set, it is the exact equivalent of setting the CURLOPT_NOPROXY option.

The CURLOPT_PROXY and CURLOPT_NOPROXY options override environment variables.

So if you set the environment variable accordingly, libcurl and consequently curl will pick it up. Any explicitly set proxy (e.g. in .curlrc or via --proxy cmdline argument) overwrites the environment variable settings.

How to make curl use proxy automatically

3 Answers3