how to use http proxy in terminal

Question

I have to use a http proxy to access Internet. Now I'm using firefox with the http proxy to access Internet. But on terminal, I can' access Internet.

So are there ways to use http proxy on terminal so I can access Internet? THanks!

My linux is fedora 16

I tried

[root@kitty wg]# http_proxy =http://proxy.polito.it:8080
bash: http_proxy: command not found...

Answer 1

Jan's answer is good, the environment variable http_proxy is read by many programs, e.g. wget. You can add this

export http_proxy="http://@${proxyserver}:${port}"

to your ~/.bash_profile. Also yum works, but you can also specify it in /etc/yum.conf.

Other programs can be configured similarly (e.g. git in ~/.gitconfig, chromium --proxy-server=host:port).

Some programs do not read this environment variable, e.g. svn. You need to proxify them. This works by replacing shared network libraries with proxified versions, which route traffic through the proxy. E.g. proxychains or tsocks.

Your best source for each program is to open the manual and search for proxy.

btw, the reason your own attempt failed, was that you must not use a space between http_proxy and =.., otherwise you cannot declare that variable (bash thinks it is a command, but doesn't find a matching one in your $PATH.).

Answer 2

Yuo need to export the following environment variables:

http_proxy='http://user:pass@PROXY_IP:PROXY_PORT/'
https_proxy='http://user:pass@PROXY_IP:PROXY_PORT/'
ftp_proxy='http://user:pass@PROXY_IP:PROXY_PORT/'