10. Using yum with a Proxy Server
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10. Using yum with a Proxy Server

By default, yum accesses network repositories with HTTP. All yum HTTP operations use HTTP/1.1, and are compatible with web proxy servers that support this standard. You may also access FTP repositories, and configure yum to use an FTP proxy server. The squid package provides a proxy service for both HTTP/1.1 and FTP connections.

[Tip]Modifying yum for Network Compatibility

Refer to the man page for yum.conf for information on HTTP settings that may be modified for compatibility with nonstandard web proxy servers. Alternatively, configure yum to use an FTP proxy server, and access repositories that support FTP. The Fedora repositories support both HTTP and FTP.

10.1. Configuring Proxy Server Access

To enable all yum operations to use a proxy server, specify the proxy server details in /etc/yum.conf. The proxy setting must specify the proxy server as a complete URL, including the TCP port number. If your proxy server requires a username and password, specify these by adding proxy_username and proxy_password settings.

The settings below enable yum to use the proxy server mycache.mydomain.com, connecting to port 3128, with the username yum-user and the password qwerty. 

# The proxy server - proxy server:port number
proxy=http://mycache.mydomain.com:3128
# The account details for yum connections
proxy_username=yum-user
proxy_password=qwerty

Example 3. Configuration File Settings for Using A Proxy Server

[Note]Global Settings

If you define a proxy server in /etc/yum.conf, all users connect to the proxy server with those details when using yum.

10.2. Configuring Proxy Server Access for a Single User

To enable proxy access for a specific user, add the lines in the example box below to the user's shell profile. For the default bash shell, the profile is the file ~/.bash_profile. The settings below enable yum to use the proxy server mycache.mydomain.com, connecting to port 3128. 

# The Web proxy server used by this account
http_proxy="http://mycache.mydomain.com:3128"
export http_proxy

Example 4. Profile Settings for Using a Proxy Server

If the proxy server requires a username and password, add these to the URL. To include the username yum-user and the password qwerty, add these settings: 

# The Web proxy server, with the username and password for this account
http_proxy="http://yum-user:[email protected]:3128"
export http_proxy

Example 5. Profile Settings for a Secured Proxy Server

[Note]The http_proxy Environment Variable

The http_proxy environment variable is also used by curl and other utilities. Although yum itself may use http_proxy in either upper-case or lower-case, curl requires the name of the variable to be in lower-case.

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