Mac OS – How to Change Proxy Settings Using Command Line

macPROXYshell

I am using Mac OS and sometimes some work need to be done using a proxy so I need to change my proxy setting frequently. But changing proxy setting in System Preferences is very messy.

Is there a way that I can change my proxy setting using command line? Use a shell command or some tools?

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EDIT: I am assuming you actually means Mac OS X, and not Mac OS..

You can use the commandline tool 'networksetup'

There is a manpage for it - networksetup(8)

man networksetup

You will find many options for proxy settings in there:

              [-setftpproxy networkservice domain portnumber authenticated username password]
              [-setftpproxystate networkservice on | off] [-getwebproxy networkservice]
              [-setwebproxy networkservice domain portnumber authenticated username  password]
              [-setwebproxystate networkservice on | off] [-getsecurewebproxy networkservice]
              [-setsecurewebproxy networkservice domain portnumber authenticated username password]
              [-setsecurewebproxystate networkservice on | off] [-getstreamingproxy networkservice]
              [-setstreamingproxy networkservice domain portnumber authenticated username password]
              [-setstreamingproxystate networkservice on | off] [-getgopherproxy networkservice]
              [-setgopherproxy networkservice domain portnumber authenticated username password]
              [-setgopherproxystate networkservice on | off] [-getsocksfirewallproxy networkservice]
              [-setsocksfirewallproxy networkservice domain portnumber authenticated username password]
              [-setsocksfirewallproxystate networkservice on | off] [-getproxybypassdomains networkservice]
              [-setproxybypassdomains networkservice domain1 [domain2] [...]] [-getpassiveftp networkservice]

Alternatively, if you just need to set the proxy for something like wget, or curl, then you can use the fairly universal 'http_proxy' and 'ftp_proxy' env variables.

Eg in bash:

export http_proxy=http://my.proxy.com:1234

Where '1234' is the port number.

cheers

sc.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to invoke a command using specific proxy server

Most Linux commands that access the Internet look in the HTTP_PROXY, FTP_PROXY, and SOCKS_SERVER environment variables for proxy information. So, to do something like your example, just run:

export SOCKS_SERVER=1.2.3.4:8000
wget http://superuser.com/q/262956/66003

The syntax for HTTP_PROXY and FTP_PROXY is slightly different:

export HTTP_PROXY=http://1.2.3.4:3128/
export FTP_PROXY=ftp://1.2.3.4:25/

The default GNOME desktop environment included with Ubuntu's proxy settings has an Apply System-Wide button, which will automatically set those environment variables for you. Otherwise, you can add the export lines to your ~/.bashrc file to make them take effect at every login.

Unfortunately, wget doesn't support SOCKS at all. You can use curl, which is included with Ubuntu, to achieve many things that wget does. Unfortunately, it doesn't check SOCKS_SERVER, while it does check HTTP_PROXY (as does wget). To use curl to download this page with a SOCKS5 server (performing DNS resolution with that server) and save it as superuser.html, run this:

curl --socks5-hostname 1.2.3.4:8000 http://superuser.com/q/262956/66003 > superuser.html

If you want to make curl always use that SOCKS proxy, you could create a shell alias. Just add the following line to your ~/.bashrc:

alias curl='curl --socks5-hostname 1.2.3.4:8000'

You will need to restart your terminal or run that line as if it were a command for the changes to take effect.

Windows – How to change the Windows7 LAN proxy config from the command line

In Windows 7 proxycfg.exe has been replaced with the netsh command. Netsh.exe is a command-line scripting utility that allows you to, either locally or remotely, display or modify the network configuration of a computer that is currently running. To setup a local machine proxy you would use the following syntax:

open a command prompt in administrative mode (hit start globe, type cmd, then hit Ctrl+Shift + Enter)

To set a proxy:

netsh winhttp set proxy [proxy server address:port number] [bypass list]

Example:

netsh winhttp set proxy "myproxy.proxyaddress.com:8484" "<local>;*.proxyaddress.com"

To check your proxy server setting:

netsh winhttp show proxy

To remove the proxy server setting:

netsh winhttp reset proxy

The netsh command is interactive so you can always just type netsh and then the subsequent commands you need to save some key stroaks.

Important note: If you're running on a 64-bit OS, and want the proxy to be applied for 32-bit processes as well, you'll need to also modify your settings by running C:\Windows\SysWow64\netsh.exe. This is caused by a bug in Windows 7's version of netsh.exe, which doesn't write the registry values to the Wow6432Node key. This bug seems to be fixed for Windows 10 (and probably Windows 8 as well)

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Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to invoke a command using specific proxy server

Windows – How to change the Windows7 LAN proxy config from the command line

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