Gnome goal proposal : proxy support

[Lionel Dricot (aka Ploum)]

Hello,

At work, I'm stuck behind a proxy with a password. I then discovered that a lot of application are not capable of handling a connection with a proxy. Others require a specific configuration while the proxy configuration is already available by Gnome. Last but not least, some applications use the Gnome proxy preferences but forget to handle proxy exceptions or handle proxy correctly only if no password is required.


The idea of my Gnome Goal proposal would be to have perfect and consistent proxy support in the whole Gnome desktop, which is a great asset in the corporate world.

To comply, applications should :

1) Connect seamlessly to the Internet if the proxy is configured in the gnome proxy settings (manually configured or with a pac file).

2) Have no proxy/network preferences or, if really needed, an option enabled by default "Use gnome/system settings"  (The only reason would be to allow application to work without Gnome. I cannot imagine why the hell network should be a per-application setting)

3) Connect seamlessly to the exceptions of the proxy (typical usage : intranet website)

4) If the proxy requires a password *and* the password is not set in the gnome-proxy-settings, then ask for it.

5) If the password is already in the gnome proxy settings, don't ask for it (unlike Epiphany).


In order to achieve this, we could make an howto on how to set a local proxy on your computer and, for a week or two, we will ask all Gnome developpers to eat their own dog food and only connect through their local proxy. I'm sure it will reveal a lot of eatches to scratch !


Do you believe it worth a Gnome Goal ? Or do you think that individual bug reports are enough for that. ?


BTW, I'm a strong proponent of location-based proxies (thus having proxy configuration related to the connection used in Network-Manager or, better, having the proxy configuration directly built in N-M) but I'm not sure that this request fit into this goal.
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=477040
https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-system-tools/+bug/173256


Thanks for reading,

Lionel

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[Rodrigo Moya]

On Tue, 2008-10-28 at 15:58 +0100, Lionel Dricot wrote:

> Hello,
>
> At work, I'm stuck behind a proxy with a password. I then discovered
> that a lot of application are not capable of handling a connection
> with a proxy. Others require a specific configuration while the proxy
> configuration is already available by Gnome. Last but not least, some
> applications use the Gnome proxy preferences but forget to handle
> proxy exceptions or handle proxy correctly only if no password is
> required.
>
>
> The idea of my Gnome Goal proposal would be to have perfect and
> consistent proxy support in the whole Gnome desktop, which is a great
> asset in the corporate world.
>
> To comply, applications should :
>
> 1) Connect seamlessly to the Internet if the proxy is configured in
> the gnome proxy settings (manually configured or with a pac file).
>
> 2) Have no proxy/network preferences or, if really needed, an option
> enabled by default "Use gnome/system settings"  (The only reason would
> be to allow application to work without Gnome. I cannot imagine why
> the hell network should be a per-application setting)
>
> 3) Connect seamlessly to the exceptions of the proxy (typical usage :
> intranet website)
>
> 4) If the proxy requires a password *and* the password is not set in
> the gnome-proxy-settings, then ask for it.
>
> 5) If the password is already in the gnome proxy settings, don't ask
> for it (unlike Epiphany).
>
>
> In order to achieve this, we could make an howto on how to set a local
> proxy on your computer and, for a week or two, we will ask all Gnome
> developpers to eat their own dog food and only connect through their
> local proxy. I'm sure it will reveal a lot of eatches to scratch !
>
>
> Do you believe it worth a Gnome Goal ? Or do you think that individual
> bug reports are enough for that. ?
>

it is indeed a very nice goal, but if every app using the network needs
to do all this, the situation is going to continue as it is today :-) So
it would be great if there was an API for every app to use, which would
just use/not use the proxy settings and authenticate if needed, all done
"automagically" behind the scenes.

>
> BTW, I'm a strong proponent of location-based proxies (thus having
> proxy configuration related to the connection used in Network-Manager
> or, better, having the proxy configuration directly built in N-M) but
> I'm not sure that this request fit into this goal.
> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=477040
> https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-system-tools/+bug/173256
>
I also think NM is the place to have this, but not all distros use it
AFAIK, so we can't really rely on that. But yes, it would make much more
sense to have all the proxy config related to the current NM
connection.
--
Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo@...>

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[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 03:58:02PM +0100, Lionel Dricot wrote:
> At work, I'm stuck behind a proxy with a password. I then discovered that a
> lot of application are not capable of handling a connection with a proxy.
> Others require a specific configuration while the proxy configuration is
> already available by Gnome. Last but not least, some applications use the
> Gnome proxy preferences but forget to handle proxy exceptions or handle
> proxy correctly only if no password is required.

'some applications' is a bit vague. Are these part of GNOME, meaning,
listed on http://www.gnome.org/start/unstable ?

> The idea of my Gnome Goal proposal would be to have perfect and consistent
> proxy support in the whole Gnome desktop, which is a great asset in the
> corporate world.

That is not the purpose of a GNOME goal. A goal must be a change which
could be implemented easily across a lot of modules. I don't think
adding proxy support fits with that.

Also, proxy is a bit vague. What does it do, socks or just http?

> 4) If the proxy requires a password *and* the password is not set in the
> gnome-proxy-settings, then ask for it.

We have gnome-keyring for passwords.

> 5) If the password is already in the gnome proxy settings, don't ask for it
> (unlike Epiphany).

File a bug for that.

> In order to achieve this, we could make an howto on how to set a local proxy
> on your computer and, for a week or two, we will ask all Gnome developpers
> to eat their own dog food and only connect through their local proxy. I'm
> sure it will reveal a lot of eatches to scratch !

I don't think that'll work. Better to test every application and report
bugs.

> Do you believe it worth a Gnome Goal ? Or do you think that individual bug
> reports are enough for that. ?

Not exactly sure if it is a 'bug' or more a request for enhancement.
Anyway, bugs aren't solved because they're filed. However, don't think
it is a 'goal' as intended with the GNOME goal wiki site.


There is a proposal for libproxy, but it only handles the configuration,
not the actual proxy. Also saw something on the wiki regarding GProxy.

--
Regards,
Olav
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[Glenn J. Mason-2]

Rodrigo Moya wrote:

On Tue, 2008-10-28 at 15:58 +0100, Lionel Dricot wrote:
  

Hello,

At work, I'm stuck behind a proxy with a password. I then discovered
that a lot of application are not capable of handling a connection
with a proxy. Others require a specific configuration while the proxy
configuration is already available by Gnome. Last but not least, some
applications use the Gnome proxy preferences but forget to handle
proxy exceptions or handle proxy correctly only if no password is
required.


The idea of my Gnome Goal proposal would be to have perfect and
consistent proxy support in the whole Gnome desktop, which is a great
asset in the corporate world.

Do you believe it worth a Gnome Goal ? Or do you think that individual
bug reports are enough for that. ?

 is indeed a very nice goal, but if every app using the network needs
to do all this, the situation is going to continue as it is today :-) So
it would be great if there was an API for every app to use, which would
just use/not use the proxy settings and authenticate if needed, all done
"automagically" behind the scenes

I think there's a conversation[1] underway[2] about inclusion of libproxy[3] as a dependency for 2.26 -- and I agree that it's a worthy goal (although I don't know what would make it a Goal, if you see what I mean).

[1] http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointTwentyfive/ExternalDependencies
[2] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2008-October/msg00040.html
[3] http://code.google.com/p/libproxy/


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[Olav Vitters]

On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 04:28:04PM +0000, Glenn J. Mason wrote
something.

Please disable HTML when writing to a mailing list. I have no idea what
the new text is.

--
Regards,
Olav
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[Lionel Dricot (aka Ploum)]

On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 5:24 PM, Olav Vitters <olav@...> wrote:

On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 03:58:02PM +0100, Lionel Dricot wrote:

> Do you believe it worth a Gnome Goal ? Or do you think that individual bug

> reports are enough for that. ?

Not exactly sure if it is a 'bug' or more a request for enhancement.
Anyway, bugs aren't solved because they're filed. However, don't think
it is a 'goal' as intended with the GNOME goal wiki site.

Enhancement... It looks like you are not using a proxy. When you are forced to use one and that most applications behave in strange ways (or doesn't work as expected), it's definitely a bug.  But you cannot understand if you don't use a proxy.

A few years ago, I had never used a proxy. I developped a little application for Gnome with no proxy support. I received a patch. I marked the bug as "enhancement" and it tooks me a while to get it included. Because I had no idea. Now that I'm using a proxy at work, I realize that my application was completely unusable behind a proxy. That's for the little story. I really think good proxy support is an huge asset. (and given the fact the proxy support in Windows is a shame, it's one more strong point for us in the corporate world) but not proxy support at all is a bug (and an important one).

Anyway, if I'm 100% sure that we need good proxy support, I don't know if it worth a Gnome Goal, that's why I'm asking for advices here. And thank you (and all others) for your replies, it's really interesting.


Regards,

Lionel

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[Olav Vitters]

On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 09:33:37AM +0100, Lionel Dricot wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 5:24 PM, Olav Vitters <olav@...> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 03:58:02PM +0100, Lionel Dricot wrote:
> >
> > > Do you believe it worth a Gnome Goal ? Or do you think that individual
> > bug
> > > reports are enough for that. ?
> >
> > Not exactly sure if it is a 'bug' or more a request for enhancement.
> > Anyway, bugs aren't solved because they're filed. However, don't think
> > it is a 'goal' as intended with the GNOME goal wiki site.
> >
> > Enhancement... It looks like you are not using a proxy. When you are forced
> to use one and that most applications behave in strange ways (or doesn't
> work as expected), it's definitely a bug.  But you cannot understand if you
> don't use a proxy.
>
> A few years ago, I had never used a proxy. I developped a little application
> for Gnome with no proxy support. I received a patch. I marked the bug as
> "enhancement" and it tooks me a while to get it included. Because I had no
> idea. Now that I'm using a proxy at work, I realize that my application was
> completely unusable behind a proxy. That's for the little story. I really
> think good proxy support is an huge asset. (and given the fact the proxy
> support in Windows is a shame, it's one more strong point for us in the
> corporate world) but not proxy support at all is a bug (and an important
> one).
>
> Anyway, if I'm 100% sure that we need good proxy support, I don't know if it
> worth a Gnome Goal, that's why I'm asking for advices here. And thank you
> (and all others) for your replies, it's really interesting.

What I meant with GNOME goal as on the wiki site is that it is focused
on small changes which can be done by developers not intimately familiar
with a module. IMO proxy support really requires a knowledgeable person.
If you look at the existing GNOME goals, they're usually pretty easy.

So I agree we should have proxy support. Ok with investigating how to
improve it. However, I am not sure if it can be a GNOME goal as
described above.

This doesn't mean I think it isn't worthy of support, just that proxy
support is more difficult. The lack of proxy support should just be
fixed though. No idea what is the best way etc.

Perhaps best to start with a few modules, file some bugs.

--
Regards,
Olav
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