title: Downloading thru the firewall via a web proxy link: https://onemoretech.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/downloading-thru-the-firewall-via-a-web-proxy/ author: lembobro description: post_id: 173 created: 2010/03/19 19:24:59 created_gmt: 2010/03/19 19:24:59 comment_status: open post_name: downloading-thru-the-firewall-via-a-web-proxy status: publish post_type: post

Downloading thru the firewall via a web proxy

Just a quick tip for those out there who find themselves trying to download software from various vendors whilst on a server deep behind the corporate firewall.

Assuming your company has a web proxy for internal users, you may want to try configuring any web browser that may be on the server to use it. Even if the machine is running headless you may be able to connect over vnc and launch a local web browser that can be set to use a web proxy.

If your proxy doesn’t require authentication many apps, including wget, will use what’s found in the HTTP_PROXY shell variable.

For wget you need to invoke it with the \--proxy=on switch. If the proxy requires authentication you can also try adding \--proxy-username=myname --proxy-passwd=mypass.

For a more persistent solution, you can add the following to your system user’s (and/or root’s) .bash_profile:

HTTP_PROXY=webproxy.example.com:8080
export HTTP_PROXY

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