[Adium-devl] Global proxy settings?

Thu Mar 1 06:59:30 UTC 2007

Andrew Harvey wrote:
> As someone who has spent a couple of years tunneling out of unfriendly
> networks, Adium's Proxy support could be improved somewhat, but it will
> work well enough. Personally, I found it easiest to somehow get an SSH
> connection out (I used various combinations of HTTP proxies, SOCKS
> proxies, death rays and brute force) and then simply use good old SSH -D
> to create a SOCKS proxy, and then set that as the proxy in system
> preferences, while specifying a different HTTP proxy. It worked for me,
> but I can see how it might not work for many others.
> 

Exactly what I've been doing :) But thats the reason I proposed
something like this, since it becomes a hassle trying to ssh -D out of
sticky situations.

> What would be fantastic would be (DUN DUN DUN!) AppleScript support,
> through which proxy settings could easily be set, allowing me to use
> startup items, Quicksilver or some sort of black magic to trigger
> various scripts for various configurations. I know, I'm just dreaming,
> but it would be really cool. Of course, I'm more than happy to replace
> AS with a real scripting language like python, ruby or lua, but I get
> that the feeling that's dreaming to a greater extent.
> 

Heh that does sound interesting. I'm not quite sure I got all of what
you're trying to convey though - perhaps an example of how such a script
would work would be nice!

Cheers
Viksit

> Andrew
> 
> On 01/03/2007, at 5:20 PM, Viksit Gaur wrote:
> 
>>
>>
>> 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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