Configure applications to ask for a user:pass behind a proxy

Question

Here's the deal: I'm trying to set up a SQL server with Debian Linux, I managed to install Debian - but I can't get apt-get to work, since I'm behind a proxy.

I already managed to setup Iceweasel to work with the proxy, but that's it.

Also, I would like it to work like it did under Windows 7: every time a user tries to access the web, it should ask for a user:pass to authenticate the proxy.

I tried:

export HTTP_PROXY='http://f472:9874@cache.webad.com:80'

and then I tried

vi /etc/apt/apt.conf

and added the line

acquire::http::proxy "http://f472:9874@cache.webad.com:80";

It didn't work in both cases

Any suggestions?

EDIT: It did work on the second case after I added the semicolon in the end, but still, my corporate user name and password are plaintext in the config file.

Answer 1

There might be a GNOME-Keyring solution (combined with Synaptic) to this, but since it would include a graphical user environment (which your SQL server probably doesn't have), but: how about adding a user to the user database the proxy checks against especially for this purpose?

However, it might also be a solution to add the SQL server to a kind of DMZ-subnet, i.e., servers that are supposed to be allowed to access the internet without the proxy. (Tried using FTP, btw?)

(If you're not in charge of user accounts, describing your problem to the ones in charge will probably make them happily agree that a new user is needed for this.)