[Adium-devl] Global proxy settings?

[Viksit Gaur]

On 2/28/07, Chris Forsythe <chris at adiumx.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Feb 28, 2007, at 11:38 PM, Viksit Gaur wrote:
>
> > Hi guys,
> >
> > Thanks for the prompt responses.
> >
> > @Evan - Right, I know that Mac OS X has a number of network
> > "Locations" which can be changed at will, and can have proxy
> > settings associated with it. But, consider a scenario where you've
> > connected to a VPN. Now, I go to locations -> My VPN Location, and
> > can select a system wide proxy, perhaps an HTTP at port 80. But,
> > this proxy might be unfriendly to IM connections, this being of
> > course, dependent on the whims and fancies of people who run this
> > particular proxy - perhaps even blocking connections to known IM
> > servers.
> >
>
> In my experience you can usually get around unfriendly networks like
> this with multiple solutions which are a lot simpler. My previous
> email about an stunnel works well in some situations, or even just an
> evdo card to get around the mess entirely.


Stunnel is an option, yes. but evdo cards - I'm assuming you mean something
by Sprint et al? - how would that help? If you're on a VPN, local LAN access
is blocked anyway (for instance, the Cisco VPN Client or other IPSec based
systems)


> Another issue is of using different proxies for different
> > resources. I'm not too familiar with the internals of advanced
> > proxies in use today, but I've come across a couple of cases where
> > I need one proxy for a web browser to access public web resources/
> > Library access, and another for IM/IRC, for reasons I'm not really
> > aware of. Also, some places provide auto configuration files which
> > can differ across networks/resources. This makes using a global
> > proxy (systemwide) cumbersome, because of the need to manually keep
> > editing stuff. Oh, and what if you're on a network where you don't
> > need a proxy for IM, but do for other stuff? (A hypothetical
> > situation)
>
> I have a hard time believing that more than a very small subset of
> our users are running into this problem. Is there any reason why this
> could not be put into a third party plugin?


Thats an idea. Sure, if everyone feels that this isn't really needed in the
main Adium package, a plugin would be a good option as well. AFAIK, most
major IM clients - gaim for instance, have some option for global proxies
across accounts.

>
> > With the solution I'm proposing, you can have separate profiles for
> > Adium, that may or may not utilize the system wide settings - the
> > choice is up to the user, of course.
> >
> > Another important factor is that there is no interface to set a
> > common proxy for ALL accounts  on an Adium instance. So, if you've
> > got 6 accounts, and you want to flip back and forth between "System
> > wide proxy settings" and "No Proxy", you need to either manually go
> > and flip the check box on each account, or disable proxies from the
> > System wide network settings.
>
> The usage you describe here could also be taken care of with seven os
> x locations, with one being "no proxy".


Ah,  clarification about accounts. By account, I mean an account on Adium -
Yahoo, MSN, et al, not network locations et al. So 6 different accounts,
each editable. Not sure how 7 different os x locations would help - there is
still the problem of setting up a proxy in each account setting. Of course,
each could be set to configure itself from the systemwide settings, and you
could have the proxy/no proxy set there.. But there's still a dependence on
global settings. I would think that having an option on Adium to break out
if need be would be nice.

> IMHO, it would be a more elegant solution to have some flexibility
> > for this on the Adium level.
> >
>
> I'm not seeing how this is "more elegant". Could you explain how this
> would be "more elegant"?


Well, in that you would have greater control over  proxy settings
specifically for multiple Adium accounts. And have it separate from
Systemwide settings offered by os X. Not sure if elegant is the right word,
but either way :)

Cheers,
Viksit

Chris
>
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-- 
Viksit Gaur
http://viksit.com
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