proxy settings (was: Re: Thoughts about finding viruses in email inboxes)

[Tim Frost]

Robert,


On Sun, 2009-04-05 at 18:15 -0700, Robert Holtzman wrote:
> On Sun, 5 Apr 2009, Ray Parrish wrote:
> 
> > Robert Holtzman wrote:
> >>
> >> Tried the wget command and got:
> >> Error parsing proxy URL http://:8080/: Invalid host name.
> >>
> > Well, your browser appears to be trying to go through a proxy server on
> > it's way to the site you actually need to go to, according to your error
> > message there, and the proxy server is not configured right to boot!
> 
> I didn't realize that's what the error message meant. Thanks.

My pick is that the shell variable http_proxy is set to 'http://:8080/'.

You can check that by starting a terminal, and issuing the command
 echo $http_proxy

If that reports anything other than a blank line, then you have a proxy
configured, and wget will be attempting to use that proxy.

For Ubuntu, that is set from System->Preferences->Network Proxy

If you don't have a proxy (which your comments imply is the case), then
the proxy should have the option 'Direct Internet Connection' set.

If you accidentally selected 'Manual proxy configuration', that could
explain what you are seeing, as that choice defaults to port 8080, but
no default host 

You may need to log out, then log back in to pick up the changed
setting, but in most cases, starting a new terminal session will pick up
the change.

-- 
Tim Frost <timfrost at xtra.co.nz>