APT Updates – Can’t Update Because the Word ‘prox*’ is Blocked

aptPROXYupdates

I live in Ethiopia and the government blocks all urls with the word "proxy" in them. I couldn't use that word in the title above because that would make the url contain the word proxy.

When I apt-get upgrade I get errors because some packages like libproxy1, libproxy1-plugin-gsettings, libproxy1-plugin-networkmanager, python-libproxy all contain the p word.

Therefore, it is all blocked. I tried putting the urls into proxy sites, but they all just returned to their home page.

Are there any other solutions?

Best Answer

The packages get blocked because your government apparently uses a URL filter. You can circumvent this by using FTP instead of HTTP to upgrade. To do this edit the file /etc/apt/sources.list and replace all occurrences of http with ftp.

You can also do it with these commands in a terminal:

sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list{,.old}
sudo sed -i 's/http/ftp/g' /etc/apt/sources.list

Now try to update your package list and install the updates

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

You will need to repeat the process for additional software sources (i.e. PPAs) that live in the directory /etc/apt/sources.list.d/. (credit goes to reddit user noname-_-)

Manually Edit the Configuration File

Open the file /etc/apt/apt.conf by pressing Alt+F2 and running gksu gedit /etc/apt/apt.conf. Don't worry if it is an empty file. Add these lines into the file and save it:

Acquire::ftp::proxy "ftp://Username:Your_password@domain:port-no/";
Acquire::socks::proxy "socks://Username:Your_password@domain:port-no/";
Acquire::http::proxy "http://Username:Your_password@domain:port-no/";
Acquire::https::proxy "https://Username:Your_password@domain:port-no/";

Replace username by the username assigned to you and the password by your password, domain by the domain of your proxy like 10.1.101.150, which is my college's proxy address and by the port no like 3128 or the one which you have, if you do have these parameters assigned to you, else leave out username and password and also the characters: : and @ upto domain.

To add proxy authentication parameters to other applications, have a look at this answer to a similar question.

Use the Easy GUI Utility

Another way to add this information is by going to System Settings → Network → Network Proxy then add your proxy settings and click on Apply Settings System-wide. This will add the proxy settings but you will have to add the user-name and password manually using the command-line method described above.

APT – How to Resolve Broken Packages When Installing g++ in Ubuntu 13.10

A detailed solution about how to solve broken package issue can be found here How do I resolve unmet dependencies after adding a PPA?

If you couldn't solve the broken package issue using the solutions in the above link then you can use 'aptitude' instead of 'apt'. Please using the following commands to solve the issue.

sudo apt-get install aptitude

sudo aptitude install build-essential

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Prox* authentication issue with online accounts (12.10)

Manually Edit the Configuration File

Use the Easy GUI Utility

APT – How to Resolve Broken Packages When Installing g++ in Ubuntu 13.10

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