2 File : doc/source/p-config.sgml
4 Purpose : Used with other docs and files only.
6 Copyright (C) 2001-2019 Privoxy Developers https://www.privoxy.org/
9 ========================================================================
10 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
11 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
12 ========================================================================
15 This file contains all the config file comments and options. It used to
16 build both the user-manual config sections, and all of config (yes, the main
19 Rationale: This is broken up into two files since a file with a prolog
20 (DTD, etc) cannot be sourced as a secondary file. config.sgml is basically
21 a wrapper for this file.
25 OPTIONS: The actual options are included in this file and prefixed with
26 '@@', and processed by the Makefile to strip the '@@'. Default options
27 that should appear commented out should be listed as: '@@#OPTION'.
28 Otherwise, as '@@OPTION'. Example:
30 @@listen-address 127.0.0.1:8118
32 The Makefile does significant other processing too. The final results
33 should be checked to make sure that the perl processing does not
34 fubar something!!! Makefile processing requires w3m, fmt (shell line
38 This file is included into:
41 config (the actual Privoxy config file)
46 <!-- This part only goes into user-manual -->
48 <title>The Main Configuration File</title>
51 By default, the main configuration file is named <filename>config</filename>,
52 with the exception of Windows, where it is named <filename>config.txt</filename>.
53 Configuration lines consist of an initial keyword followed by a list of
54 values, all separated by whitespace (any number of spaces or tabs). For
59 <emphasis>confdir /etc/privoxy</emphasis>
63 Assigns the value <literal>/etc/privoxy</literal> to the option
64 <literal>confdir</literal> and thus indicates that the configuration
65 directory is named <quote>/etc/privoxy/</quote>.
69 All options in the config file except for <literal>confdir</literal> and
70 <literal>logdir</literal> are optional. Watch out in the below description
71 for what happens if you leave them unset.
75 The main config file controls all aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>'s
76 operation that are not location dependent (i.e. they apply universally, no matter
77 where you may be surfing). Like the filter and action files, the config file is
78 a plain text file and can be modified with a text editor like emacs, vim or
86 <!-- This part only goes into the config file -->
89 @@TITLE<!-- between the @@ is stripped by Makefile -->@@
90 Sample Configuration File for Privoxy &p-version;
93 Copyright (C) 2001-2019 Privoxy Developers https://www.privoxy.org/
97 ##################################################################
102 II. FORMAT OF THE CONFIGURATION FILE #
104 1. LOCAL SET-UP DOCUMENTATION #
105 2. CONFIGURATION AND LOG FILE LOCATIONS #
107 4. ACCESS CONTROL AND SECURITY #
111 8. WINDOWS GUI OPTIONS #
113 ##################################################################
121 This file holds Privoxy's main configuration. Privoxy detects
122 configuration changes automatically, so you don't have to restart it
123 unless you want to load a different configuration file.
126 The configuration will be reloaded with the first request after the
127 change was done, this request itself will still use the old configuration,
128 though. In other words: it takes two requests before you see the result of
129 your changes. Requests that are dropped due to ACL don't trigger reloads.
132 When starting Privoxy on Unix systems, give the location of this
133 file as last argument. On Windows systems, Privoxy will look for
134 this file with the name 'config.txt' in the current working directory
135 of the Privoxy process.
139 <literallayout><!-- funky spacing -->
141 II. FORMAT OF THE CONFIGURATION FILE
142 ====================================</literallayout>
145 Configuration lines consist of an initial keyword followed by a list
146 of values, all separated by whitespace (any number of spaces or
150 actionsfile default.action
153 Indicates that the actionsfile is named 'default.action'.
156 The '#' indicates a comment. Any part of a line following a '#' is
157 ignored, except if the '#' is preceded by a '\'.
160 Thus, by placing a # at the start of an existing configuration line,
161 you can make it a comment and it will be treated as if it weren't there.
162 This is called "commenting out" an option and can be useful. Removing
163 the # again is called "uncommenting".
166 Note that commenting out an option and leaving it at its default
167 are two completely different things! Most options behave very
168 differently when unset. See the "Effect if unset" explanation
169 in each option's description for details.
172 Long lines can be continued on the next line by using a `\' as
178 <!-- ************************************************ -->
179 <!-- The following is common to both outputs (mostly) -->
180 <!-- ************************************************ -->
184 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
185 <sect2 id="local-set-up">
186 <title>Local Set-up Documentation</title>
189 If you intend to operate <application>Privoxy</application> for more users
190 than just yourself, it might be a good idea to let them know how to reach
191 you, what you block and why you do that, your policies, etc.
195 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
196 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="user-manual"><title>user-manual</title>
199 <term>Specifies:</term>
202 Location of the <application>Privoxy</application> User Manual.
207 <term>Type of value:</term>
209 <para>A fully qualified URI</para>
213 <term>Default value:</term>
215 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
219 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
222 <ulink url="https://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">https://www.privoxy.org/<replaceable class="parameter">version</replaceable>/user-manual/</ulink>
223 will be used, where <replaceable class="parameter">version</replaceable> is the <application>Privoxy</application> version.
231 The User Manual URI is the single best source of information on
232 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is used for help links from some
233 of the internal CGI pages. The manual itself is normally packaged with the
234 binary distributions, so you probably want to set this to a locally
242 Unix, in local filesystem (may not work with all browsers):
244 <screen> user-manual file:///usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;/user-manual/</screen>
246 Windows, in local filesystem, <emphasis>must</emphasis> use forward slash notation:
248 <screen> user-manual file:/c:/some-dir/privoxy-&p-version;/user-manual/</screen>
250 Windows, UNC notation (with forward slashes):
252 <screen> user-manual file://///some-server/some-path/privoxy-&p-version;/user-manual/</screen>
255 The best all purpose solution is simply to put the full local
256 <literal>PATH</literal> to where the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> is
259 <screen> user-manual /usr/share/doc/privoxy/user-manual</screen>
261 The User Manual is then available to anyone with access to
262 <application>Privoxy</application>, by following the built-in URL:
263 <literal>http://config.privoxy.org/user-manual/</literal>
264 (or the shortcut: <literal>http://p.p/user-manual/</literal>).
267 If the documentation is not on the local system, it can be accessed
268 from a remote server, as:
270 <screen> user-manual http://example.com/privoxy/user-manual/</screen>
272 <!-- this gets hammered in conversion to config. Text repeated below. -->
275 If set, this option should be <emphasis>the first option in the config
276 file</emphasis>, because it is used while the config file is being read
289 If set, this option should be the first option in the config
290 file, because it is used while the config file is being read.
299 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#user-manual https://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</literallayout>]]>
303 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
304 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="trust-info-url"><title>trust-info-url</title>
308 <term>Specifies:</term>
311 A URL to be displayed in the error page that users will see if access to an untrusted page is denied.
316 <term>Type of value:</term>
322 <term>Default value:</term>
324 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
328 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
331 No links are displayed on the "untrusted" error page.
339 The value of this option only matters if the experimental trust mechanism has been
340 activated. (See <link linkend="trustfile"><emphasis>trustfile</emphasis></link> below.)
343 If you use the trust mechanism, it is a good idea to write up some on-line
344 documentation about your trust policy and to specify the URL(s) here.
345 Use multiple times for multiple URLs.
348 The URL(s) should be added to the trustfile as well, so users don't end up
349 locked out from the information on why they were locked out in the first place!
355 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#trust-info-url http://www.example.com/why_we_block.html</literallayout>]]>
356 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#trust-info-url http://www.example.com/what_we_allow.html</literallayout>]]>
360 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
361 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="admin-address"><title>admin-address</title>
365 <term>Specifies:</term>
368 An email address to reach the <application>Privoxy</application> administrator.
373 <term>Type of value:</term>
375 <para>Email address</para>
379 <term>Default value:</term>
381 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
385 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
388 No email address is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
396 If both <literal>admin-address</literal> and <literal>proxy-info-url</literal>
397 are unset, the whole "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will
404 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#admin-address privoxy-admin@example.com</literallayout>]]>
408 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
409 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="proxy-info-url"><title>proxy-info-url</title>
413 <term>Specifies:</term>
416 A URL to documentation about the local <application>Privoxy</application> setup,
417 configuration or policies.
422 <term>Type of value:</term>
428 <term>Default value:</term>
430 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
434 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
437 No link to local documentation is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
445 If both <literal>admin-address</literal> and <literal>proxy-info-url</literal>
446 are unset, the whole "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will
450 This URL shouldn't be blocked ;-)
456 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#proxy-info-url http://www.example.com/proxy-service.html</literallayout>]]>
460 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
464 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
466 <sect2 id="conf-log-loc">
467 <title>Configuration and Log File Locations</title>
470 <application>Privoxy</application> can (and normally does) use a number of
471 other files for additional configuration, help and logging.
472 This section of the configuration file tells <application>Privoxy</application>
473 where to find those other files.
477 The user running <application>Privoxy</application>, must have read
478 permission for all configuration files, and write permission to any files
479 that would be modified, such as log files and actions files.
483 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
484 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="confdir"><title>confdir</title>
488 <term>Specifies:</term>
490 <para>The directory where the other configuration files are located.</para>
494 <term>Type of value:</term>
496 <para>Path name</para>
500 <term>Default value:</term>
502 <para>/etc/privoxy (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> <application>Privoxy</application> installation dir (Windows) </para>
506 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
508 <para><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
515 No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please.
521 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@confdir .</literallayout>]]>
524 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
525 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="templdir"><title>templdir</title>
529 <term>Specifies:</term>
531 <para>An alternative directory where the templates are loaded from.</para>
535 <term>Type of value:</term>
537 <para>Path name</para>
541 <term>Default value:</term>
547 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
549 <para>The templates are assumed to be located in confdir/template.</para>
556 <application>Privoxy's</application> original templates are usually
557 overwritten with each update. Use this option to relocate customized
558 templates that should be kept. As template variables might change
559 between updates, you shouldn't expect templates to work with
560 <application>Privoxy</application> releases other than the one
561 they were part of, though.
567 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#templdir .</literallayout>]]>
571 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
572 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="temporary-directory"><title>temporary-directory</title>
576 <term>Specifies:</term>
578 <para>A directory where Privoxy can create temporary files.</para>
582 <term>Type of value:</term>
584 <para>Path name</para>
588 <term>Default value:</term>
594 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
596 <para>No temporary files are created, external filters don't work.</para>
603 To execute <literal><ulink url="actions-file.html#EXTERNAL-FILTER">external filters</ulink></literal>,
604 <application>Privoxy</application> has to create temporary files.
605 This directive specifies the directory the temporary files should
609 It should be a directory only <application>Privoxy</application>
610 (and trusted users) can access.
616 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#temporary-directory .</literallayout>]]>
620 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
621 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="logdir"><title>logdir</title>
625 <term>Specifies:</term>
628 The directory where all logging takes place
629 (i.e. where the <filename>logfile</filename> is located).
634 <term>Type of value:</term>
636 <para>Path name</para>
640 <term>Default value:</term>
642 <para>/var/log/privoxy (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> <application>Privoxy</application> installation dir (Windows) </para>
646 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
648 <para><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
655 No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please.
661 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@logdir .</literallayout>]]>
665 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
666 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="actionsfile"><title>
669 <anchor id="default.action">
670 <anchor id="standard.action">
671 <anchor id="user.action">
672 <!-- Note: slightly modified this section 04/28/02, hal. See NOTE. -->
675 <term>Specifies:</term>
678 The <link linkend="actions-file">actions file(s)</link> to use
683 <term>Type of value:</term>
685 <para>Complete file name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
689 <term>Default values:</term>
693 <msgtext><literallayout> match-all.action # Actions that are applied to all sites and maybe overruled later on.</literallayout></msgtext>
696 <msgtext><literallayout> default.action # Main actions file</literallayout></msgtext>
699 <msgtext><literallayout> user.action # User customizations</literallayout></msgtext>
705 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
708 No actions are taken at all. More or less neutral proxying.
716 Multiple <literal>actionsfile</literal> lines are permitted, and are in fact recommended!
719 The default values are <filename>default.action</filename>, which is the
720 <quote>main</quote> actions file maintained by the developers, and
721 <filename>user.action</filename>, where you can make your personal additions.
724 Actions files contain all the per site and per URL configuration for
725 ad blocking, cookie management, privacy considerations, etc.
731 <!-- NOTE: alternate markup to make a simpler list doesn't work due to -->
732 <!-- html -> text conversion, blah -->
733 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@actionsfile match-all.action # Actions that are applied to all sites and maybe overruled later on.</literallayout>]]>
734 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@actionsfile default.action # Main actions file</literallayout>]]>
736 XXX: Like user.filter, user.action should probably be commented out
737 by default as not all packages install it into the default directory.
740 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@actionsfile user.action # User customizations</literallayout>]]>
743 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
744 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filterfile"><title>filterfile</title>
745 <anchor id="default.filter">
748 <term>Specifies:</term>
751 The <link linkend="filter-file">filter file(s)</link> to use
756 <term>Type of value:</term>
758 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
762 <term>Default value:</term>
764 <para>default.filter (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> default.filter.txt (Windows)</para>
768 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
771 No textual content filtering takes place, i.e. all
772 <literal>+<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>}</literal>
773 actions in the actions files are turned neutral.
781 Multiple <literal>filterfile</literal> lines are permitted.
784 The <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link> contain content modification
785 rules that use <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link>. These rules permit
786 powerful changes on the content of Web pages, and optionally the headers
787 as well, e.g., you could try to disable your favorite JavaScript annoyances,
788 re-write the actual displayed text, or just have some fun
789 playing buzzword bingo with web pages.
793 <literal>+<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>}</literal>
794 actions rely on the relevant filter (<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>)
795 to be defined in a filter file!
798 A pre-defined filter file called <filename>default.filter</filename> that contains
799 a number of useful filters for common problems is included in the distribution.
800 See the section on the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
804 It is recommended to place any locally adapted filters into a separate
805 file, such as <filename>user.filter</filename>.
811 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@filterfile default.filter</literallayout>]]>
812 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@filterfile user.filter # User customizations</literallayout>]]>
816 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
817 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="logfile"><title>logfile</title>
821 <term>Specifies:</term>
829 <term>Type of value:</term>
831 <para>File name, relative to <literal>logdir</literal></para>
835 <term>Default value:</term>
837 <para><emphasis>Unset (commented out)</emphasis>. When activated: logfile (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> privoxy.log (Windows).</para>
841 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
844 No logfile is written.
852 The logfile is where all logging and error messages are written. The level
853 of detail and number of messages are set with the <literal>debug</literal>
854 option (see below). The logfile can be useful for tracking down a problem with
855 <application>Privoxy</application> (e.g., it's not blocking an ad you
856 think it should block) and it can help you to monitor what your browser
860 Depending on the debug options below, the logfile may be a privacy risk
861 if third parties can get access to it. As most users will never look
862 at it, <application>Privoxy</application> only logs fatal errors by default.
865 For most troubleshooting purposes, you will have to change that,
866 please refer to the debugging section for details.
869 Any log files must be writable by whatever user <application>Privoxy</application>
870 is being run as (on Unix, default user id is <quote>privoxy</quote>).
873 To prevent the logfile from growing indefinitely, it is recommended to
874 periodically rotate or shorten it. Many operating systems support log
875 rotation out of the box, some require additional software to do it.
876 For details, please refer to the documentation for your operating system.
882 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@logfile logfile</literallayout>]]>
886 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
887 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="trustfile"><title>trustfile</title>
890 <term>Specifies:</term>
893 The name of the trust file to use
898 <term>Type of value:</term>
900 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
904 <term>Default value:</term>
906 <para><emphasis>Unset (commented out)</emphasis>. When activated: trust (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> trust.txt (Windows)</para>
910 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
913 The entire trust mechanism is disabled.
921 The trust mechanism is an experimental feature for building white-lists and should
922 be used with care. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> recommended for the casual user.
925 If you specify a trust file, <application>Privoxy</application> will only allow
926 access to sites that are specified in the trustfile. Sites can be listed
930 Prepending a <literal>~</literal> character limits access to this site
931 only (and any sub-paths within this site), e.g.
932 <literal>~www.example.com</literal> allows access to
933 <literal>~www.example.com/features/news.html</literal>, etc.
936 Or, you can designate sites as <emphasis>trusted referrers</emphasis>, by
937 prepending the name with a <literal>+</literal> character. The effect is that
938 access to untrusted sites will be granted -- but only if a link from this
939 trusted referrer was used to get there. The link target will then be added
940 to the <quote>trustfile</quote> so that future, direct accesses will be
941 granted. Sites added via this mechanism do not become trusted referrers
942 themselves (i.e. they are added with a <literal>~</literal> designation).
943 There is a limit of 512 such entries, after which new entries will not be
947 If you use the <literal>+</literal> operator in the trust file, it may grow
948 considerably over time.
951 It is recommended that <application>Privoxy</application> be compiled with
952 the <literal>--disable-force</literal>, <literal>--disable-toggle</literal> and
953 <literal> --disable-editor</literal> options, if this feature is to be
957 Possible applications include limiting Internet access for children.
964 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#trustfile trust</literallayout>]]>
968 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
970 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
971 <sect2 id="debugging">
972 <title>Debugging</title>
975 These options are mainly useful when tracing a problem.
976 Note that you might also want to invoke
977 <application>Privoxy</application> with the <literal>--no-daemon</literal>
978 command line option when debugging.
981 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="debug"><title>debug</title>
985 <term>Specifies:</term>
988 Key values that determine what information gets logged.
993 <term>Type of value:</term>
995 <para>Integer values</para>
999 <term>Default value:</term>
1001 <para>0 (i.e.: only fatal errors (that cause Privoxy to exit) are logged)</para>
1005 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1008 Default value is used (see above).
1016 The available debug levels are:
1019 debug 1 # Log the destination for each request &my-app; let through. See also debug 1024.
1020 debug 2 # show each connection status
1021 debug 4 # show I/O status
1022 debug 8 # show header parsing
1023 debug 16 # log all data written to the network
1024 debug 32 # debug force feature
1025 debug 64 # debug regular expression filters
1026 debug 128 # debug redirects
1027 debug 256 # debug GIF de-animation
1028 debug 512 # Common Log Format
1029 debug 1024 # Log the destination for requests &my-app; didn't let through, and the reason why.
1030 debug 2048 # CGI user interface
1031 debug 4096 # Startup banner and warnings.
1032 debug 8192 # Non-fatal errors
1033 debug 32768 # log all data read from the network
1034 debug 65536 # Log the applying actions
1037 To select multiple debug levels, you can either add them or use
1038 multiple <literal>debug</literal> lines.
1041 A debug level of 1 is informative because it will show you each request
1042 as it happens. <emphasis>1, 1024, 4096 and 8192 are recommended</emphasis>
1043 so that you will notice when things go wrong. The other levels are
1044 probably only of interest if you are hunting down a specific problem.
1045 They can produce a hell of an output (especially 16).
1048 If you are used to the more verbose settings, simply enable the debug lines
1052 If you want to use pure CLF (Common Log Format), you should set <quote>debug
1053 512</quote> <emphasis>ONLY</emphasis> and not enable anything else.
1056 <application>Privoxy</application> has a hard-coded limit for the
1057 length of log messages. If it's reached, messages are logged truncated
1058 and marked with <quote>... [too long, truncated]</quote>.
1061 Please don't file any support requests without trying to reproduce
1062 the problem with increased debug level first. Once you read the log
1063 messages, you may even be able to solve the problem on your own.
1069 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#debug 1 # Log the destination for each request &my-app; let through.</literallayout>]]>
1070 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#debug 1024 # Log the destination for requests &my-app; didn't let through, and the reason why.</literallayout>]]>
1071 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#debug 4096 # Startup banner and warnings</literallayout>]]>
1072 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#debug 8192 # Non-fatal errors</literallayout>]]>
1076 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1077 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="single-threaded"><title>single-threaded</title>
1081 <term>Specifies:</term>
1084 Whether to run only one server thread.
1089 <term>Type of value:</term>
1091 <para><emphasis>1 or 0</emphasis></para>
1095 <term>Default value:</term>
1097 <para><emphasis>0</emphasis></para>
1101 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1104 Multi-threaded (or, where unavailable: forked) operation, i.e. the ability to
1105 serve multiple requests simultaneously.
1113 This option is only there for debugging purposes.
1114 <emphasis>It will drastically reduce performance.</emphasis>
1120 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#single-threaded 1</literallayout>]]>
1123 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1124 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hostname"><title>hostname</title>
1128 <term>Specifies:</term>
1131 The hostname shown on the CGI pages.
1136 <term>Type of value:</term>
1142 <term>Default value:</term>
1144 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1148 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1151 The hostname provided by the operating system is used.
1159 On some misconfigured systems resolving the hostname fails or
1160 takes too much time and slows Privoxy down. Setting a fixed hostname
1161 works around the problem.
1164 In other circumstances it might be desirable to show a hostname
1165 other than the one returned by the operating system. For example
1166 if the system has several different hostnames and you don't want
1167 to use the first one.
1170 Note that Privoxy does not validate the specified hostname value.
1176 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#hostname hostname.example.org</literallayout>]]>
1181 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1184 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1185 <sect2 id="access-control">
1186 <title>Access Control and Security</title>
1189 This section of the config file controls the security-relevant aspects
1190 of <application>Privoxy</application>'s configuration.
1194 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1195 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="listen-address"><title>listen-address</title>
1199 <term>Specifies:</term>
1202 The address and TCP port on which <application>Privoxy</application> will
1203 listen for client requests.
1208 <term>Type of value:</term>
1210 <para>[<replaceable class="parameter">IP-Address</replaceable>]:<replaceable class="parameter">Port</replaceable></para>
1211 <para>[<replaceable class="parameter">Hostname</replaceable>]:<replaceable class="parameter">Port</replaceable></para>
1216 <term>Default value:</term>
1218 <para>127.0.0.1:8118</para>
1222 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1225 Bind to 127.0.0.1 (IPv4 localhost), port 8118. This is suitable and
1226 recommended for home users who run <application>Privoxy</application> on
1227 the same machine as their browser.
1235 You will need to configure your browser(s) to this proxy address and port.
1238 If you already have another service running on port 8118, or if you want to
1239 serve requests from other machines (e.g. on your local network) as well, you
1240 will need to override the default.
1243 You can use this statement multiple times to make
1244 <application>Privoxy</application> listen on more ports or more
1245 <abbrev>IP</abbrev> addresses. Suitable if your operating system does not
1246 support sharing <abbrev>IPv6</abbrev> and <abbrev>IPv4</abbrev> protocols
1250 If a hostname is used instead of an IP address, <application>Privoxy</application>
1251 will try to resolve it to an IP address and if there are multiple, use the first
1255 If the address for the hostname isn't already known on the system
1256 (for example because it's in /etc/hostname), this may result in DNS
1260 If the specified address isn't available on the system, or if the
1261 hostname can't be resolved, <application>Privoxy</application>
1265 IPv6 addresses containing colons have to be quoted by brackets.
1266 They can only be used if <application>Privoxy</application> has
1267 been compiled with IPv6 support. If you aren't sure if your version
1268 supports it, have a look at
1269 <literal>http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</literal>.
1272 Some operating systems will prefer IPv6 to IPv4 addresses even if the
1273 system has no IPv6 connectivity which is usually not expected by the user.
1274 Some even rely on DNS to resolve localhost which mean the "localhost" address
1275 used may not actually be local.
1278 It is therefore recommended to explicitly configure the intended IP address
1279 instead of relying on the operating system, unless there's a strong reason not to.
1282 If you leave out the address, <application>Privoxy</application> will bind to all
1283 IPv4 interfaces (addresses) on your machine and may become reachable from the
1284 Internet and/or the local network. Be aware that some GNU/Linux distributions
1285 modify that behaviour without updating the documentation. Check for non-standard
1286 patches if your <application>Privoxy</application> version behaves differently.
1289 If you configure <application>Privoxy</application> to be reachable from the
1290 network, consider using <link linkend="acls">access control lists</link>
1291 (ACL's, see below), and/or a firewall.
1294 If you open <application>Privoxy</application> to untrusted users, you will
1295 also want to make sure that the following actions are disabled: <literal><link
1296 linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link></literal> and
1297 <literal><link linkend="enable-remote-toggle">enable-remote-toggle</link></literal>
1302 <term>Example:</term>
1305 Suppose you are running <application>Privoxy</application> on
1306 a machine which has the address 192.168.0.1 on your local private network
1307 (192.168.0.0) and has another outside connection with a different address.
1308 You want it to serve requests from inside only:
1311 listen-address 192.168.0.1:8118
1314 Suppose you are running <application>Privoxy</application> on an
1315 IPv6-capable machine and you want it to listen on the IPv6 address
1316 of the loopback device:
1319 listen-address [::1]:8118
1325 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@listen-address 127.0.0.1:8118</literallayout>]]>
1329 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1330 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="toggle"><title>toggle</title>
1334 <term>Specifies:</term>
1337 Initial state of "toggle" status
1342 <term>Type of value:</term>
1348 <term>Default value:</term>
1354 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1357 Act as if toggled on
1365 If set to 0, <application>Privoxy</application> will start in
1366 <quote>toggled off</quote> mode, i.e. mostly behave like a normal,
1367 content-neutral proxy with both ad blocking and content filtering
1368 disabled. See <literal>enable-remote-toggle</literal> below.
1374 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@toggle 1</literallayout>]]>
1378 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1379 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="enable-remote-toggle"><title>enable-remote-toggle</title>
1382 <term>Specifies:</term>
1385 Whether or not the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">web-based toggle
1386 feature</ulink> may be used
1391 <term>Type of value:</term>
1397 <term>Default value:</term>
1403 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1406 The web-based toggle feature is disabled.
1414 When toggled off, <application>Privoxy</application> mostly acts like a normal,
1415 content-neutral proxy, i.e. doesn't block ads or filter content.
1418 Access to the toggle feature can <emphasis>not</emphasis> be
1419 controlled separately by <quote>ACLs</quote> or HTTP authentication,
1420 so that everybody who can access <application>Privoxy</application> (see
1421 <quote>ACLs</quote> and <literal>listen-address</literal> above) can
1422 toggle it for all users. So this option is <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>
1423 for multi-user environments with untrusted users.
1426 Note that malicious client side code (e.g Java) is also
1427 capable of using this option.
1430 As a lot of <application>Privoxy</application> users don't read
1431 documentation, this feature is disabled by default.
1434 Note that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
1435 support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect.
1441 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@enable-remote-toggle 0</literallayout>]]>
1445 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1446 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="enable-remote-http-toggle"><title>enable-remote-http-toggle</title>
1449 <term>Specifies:</term>
1452 Whether or not Privoxy recognizes special HTTP headers to change its behaviour.
1457 <term>Type of value:</term>
1463 <term>Default value:</term>
1469 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1472 Privoxy ignores special HTTP headers.
1480 When toggled on, the client can change <application>Privoxy's</application>
1481 behaviour by setting special HTTP headers. Currently the only supported
1482 special header is <quote>X-Filter: No</quote>, to disable filtering for
1483 the ongoing request, even if it is enabled in one of the action files.
1486 This feature is disabled by default. If you are using
1487 <application>Privoxy</application> in a environment with trusted clients,
1488 you may enable this feature at your discretion. Note that malicious client
1489 side code (e.g Java) is also capable of using this feature.
1492 This option will be removed in future releases as it has been obsoleted
1493 by the more general header taggers.
1499 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@enable-remote-http-toggle 0</literallayout>]]>
1503 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1504 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="enable-edit-actions"><title>enable-edit-actions</title>
1507 <term>Specifies:</term>
1510 Whether or not the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">web-based actions
1511 file editor</ulink> may be used
1516 <term>Type of value:</term>
1522 <term>Default value:</term>
1528 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1531 The web-based actions file editor is disabled.
1539 Access to the editor can <emphasis>not</emphasis> be
1540 controlled separately by <quote>ACLs</quote> or HTTP authentication,
1541 so that everybody who can access <application>Privoxy</application> (see
1542 <quote>ACLs</quote> and <literal>listen-address</literal> above) can
1543 modify its configuration for all users.
1546 This option is <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis> for environments
1547 with untrusted users and as a lot of <application>Privoxy</application>
1548 users don't read documentation, this feature is disabled by default.
1551 Note that malicious client side code (e.g Java) is also
1552 capable of using the actions editor and you shouldn't enable
1553 this options unless you understand the consequences and are
1554 sure your browser is configured correctly.
1557 Note that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
1558 support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect.
1564 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@enable-edit-actions 0</literallayout>]]>
1568 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="enforce-blocks"><title>enforce-blocks</title>
1571 <term>Specifies:</term>
1574 Whether the user is allowed to ignore blocks and can <quote>go there anyway</quote>.
1579 <term>Type of value:</term>
1582 <replaceable>0 or 1</replaceable>
1587 <term>Default value:</term>
1589 <para><emphasis>0</emphasis></para>
1593 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1596 Blocks are not enforced.
1604 <application>Privoxy</application> is mainly used to block and filter
1605 requests as a service to the user, for example to block ads and other
1606 junk that clogs the pipes. <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration
1607 isn't perfect and sometimes innocent pages are blocked. In this situation it
1608 makes sense to allow the user to enforce the request and have
1609 <application>Privoxy</application> ignore the block.
1612 In the default configuration <application>Privoxy's</application>
1613 <quote>Blocked</quote> page contains a <quote>go there anyway</quote>
1614 link to adds a special string (the force prefix) to the request URL.
1615 If that link is used, <application>Privoxy</application> will
1616 detect the force prefix, remove it again and let the request pass.
1619 Of course <application>Privoxy</application> can also be used to enforce
1620 a network policy. In that case the user obviously should not be able to
1621 bypass any blocks, and that's what the <quote>enforce-blocks</quote>
1622 option is for. If it's enabled, <application>Privoxy</application> hides
1623 the <quote>go there anyway</quote> link. If the user adds the force
1624 prefix by hand, it will not be accepted and the circumvention attempt
1630 <term>Examples:</term>
1638 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@enforce-blocks 0</literallayout>]]>
1642 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1643 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="acls"><title>
1644 ACLs: permit-access and deny-access</title>
1645 <anchor id="permit-access">
1646 <anchor id="deny-access">
1650 <term>Specifies:</term>
1653 Who can access what.
1658 <term>Type of value:</term>
1661 <replaceable class="parameter">src_addr</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>][/<replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable>]
1662 [<replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>][/<replaceable class="parameter">dst_masklen</replaceable>]]
1665 Where <replaceable class="parameter">src_addr</replaceable> and
1666 <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable> are IPv4 addresses in dotted decimal notation or valid
1667 DNS names, <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> is a port
1668 number, and <replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable> and
1669 <replaceable class="parameter">dst_masklen</replaceable> are subnet masks in CIDR notation, i.e. integer
1670 values from 2 to 30 representing the length (in bits) of the network address. The masks and the whole
1671 destination part are optional.
1674 If your system implements
1675 <ulink url="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3493">RFC 3493</ulink>, then
1676 <replaceable class="parameter">src_addr</replaceable> and <replaceable
1677 class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable> can be IPv6 addresses delimeted by
1678 brackets, <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> can be a number
1679 or a service name, and
1680 <replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable> and
1681 <replaceable class="parameter">dst_masklen</replaceable> can be a number
1687 <term>Default value:</term>
1689 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1691 If no <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> is specified,
1692 any port will match. If no <replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable> or
1693 <replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable> is given, the complete IP
1694 address has to match (i.e. 32 bits for IPv4 and 128 bits for IPv6).
1699 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1702 Don't restrict access further than implied by <literal>listen-address</literal>
1710 Access controls are included at the request of ISPs and systems
1711 administrators, and <emphasis>are not usually needed by individual users</emphasis>.
1712 For a typical home user, it will normally suffice to ensure that
1713 <application>Privoxy</application> only listens on the localhost
1714 (127.0.0.1) or internal (home) network address by means of the
1715 <link linkend="listen-address"><emphasis>listen-address</emphasis></link>
1719 Please see the warnings in the FAQ that <application>Privoxy</application>
1720 is not intended to be a substitute for a firewall or to encourage anyone
1721 to defer addressing basic security weaknesses.
1724 Multiple ACL lines are OK.
1725 If any ACLs are specified, <application>Privoxy</application> only talks
1726 to IP addresses that match at least one <literal>permit-access</literal> line
1727 and don't match any subsequent <literal>deny-access</literal> line. In other words, the
1728 last match wins, with the default being <literal>deny-access</literal>.
1731 If <application>Privoxy</application> is using a forwarder (see <literal>forward</literal> below)
1732 for a particular destination URL, the <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable>
1733 that is examined is the address of the forwarder and <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the address
1734 of the ultimate target. This is necessary because it may be impossible for the local
1735 <application>Privoxy</application> to determine the IP address of the
1736 ultimate target (that's often what gateways are used for).
1739 You should prefer using IP addresses over DNS names, because the address lookups take
1740 time. All DNS names must resolve! You can <emphasis>not</emphasis> use domain patterns
1741 like <quote>*.org</quote> or partial domain names. If a DNS name resolves to multiple
1742 IP addresses, only the first one is used.
1745 Some systems allow IPv4 clients to connect to IPv6 server sockets.
1746 Then the client's IPv4 address will be translated by the system into
1747 IPv6 address space with special prefix ::ffff:0:0/96 (so called IPv4
1748 mapped IPv6 address). <application>Privoxy</application> can handle it
1749 and maps such ACL addresses automatically.
1752 Denying access to particular sites by ACL may have undesired side effects
1753 if the site in question is hosted on a machine which also hosts other sites
1759 <term>Examples:</term>
1762 Explicitly define the default behavior if no ACL and
1763 <literal>listen-address</literal> are set: <quote>localhost</quote>
1764 is OK. The absence of a <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable> implies that
1765 <emphasis>all</emphasis> destination addresses are OK:
1768 permit-access localhost
1771 Allow any host on the same class C subnet as www.privoxy.org access to
1772 nothing but www.example.com (or other domains hosted on the same system):
1775 permit-access www.privoxy.org/24 www.example.com/32
1778 Allow access from any host on the 26-bit subnet 192.168.45.64 to anywhere,
1779 with the exception that 192.168.45.73 may not access the IP address behind
1780 www.dirty-stuff.example.com:
1783 permit-access 192.168.45.64/26
1784 deny-access 192.168.45.73 www.dirty-stuff.example.com
1787 Allow access from the IPv4 network 192.0.2.0/24 even if listening on
1788 an IPv6 wild card address (not supported on all platforms):
1791 permit-access 192.0.2.0/24
1794 This is equivalent to the following line even if listening on an
1795 IPv4 address (not supported on all platforms):
1798 permit-access [::ffff:192.0.2.0]/120
1806 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1807 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="buffer-limit"><title>buffer-limit</title>
1811 <term>Specifies:</term>
1814 Maximum size of the buffer for content filtering.
1819 <term>Type of value:</term>
1821 <para>Size in Kbytes</para>
1825 <term>Default value:</term>
1831 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1834 Use a 4MB (4096 KB) limit.
1842 For content filtering, i.e. the <literal>+filter</literal> and
1843 <literal>+deanimate-gif</literal> actions, it is necessary that
1844 <application>Privoxy</application> buffers the entire document body.
1845 This can be potentially dangerous, since a server could just keep sending
1846 data indefinitely and wait for your RAM to exhaust -- with nasty consequences.
1850 When a document buffer size reaches the <literal>buffer-limit</literal>, it is
1851 flushed to the client unfiltered and no further attempt to
1852 filter the rest of the document is made. Remember that there may be multiple threads
1853 running, which might require up to <literal>buffer-limit</literal> Kbytes
1854 <emphasis>each</emphasis>, unless you have enabled <quote>single-threaded</quote>
1861 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@buffer-limit 4096</literallayout>]]>
1864 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1865 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="enable-proxy-authentication-forwarding"><title>enable-proxy-authentication-forwarding</title>
1868 <term>Specifies:</term>
1871 Whether or not proxy authentication through &my-app; should work.
1876 <term>Type of value:</term>
1882 <term>Default value:</term>
1888 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1891 Proxy authentication headers are removed.
1899 Privoxy itself does not support proxy authentication, but can
1900 allow clients to authenticate against Privoxy's parent proxy.
1903 By default Privoxy (3.0.21 and later) don't do that and remove
1904 Proxy-Authorization headers in requests and Proxy-Authenticate
1905 headers in responses to make it harder for malicious sites to
1906 trick inexperienced users into providing login information.
1909 If this option is enabled the headers are forwarded.
1912 Enabling this option is <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis> if there is
1913 no parent proxy that requires authentication or if the local network between
1914 Privoxy and the parent proxy isn't trustworthy. If proxy authentication is
1915 only required for some requests, it is recommended to use a client header filter
1916 to remove the authentication headers for requests where they aren't needed.
1922 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@enable-proxy-authentication-forwarding 0</literallayout>]]>
1925 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1926 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="trusted-cgi-referer"><title>trusted-cgi-referer</title>
1929 <term>Specifies:</term>
1932 A trusted website or webpage whose links can be followed to reach sensitive CGI pages
1937 <term>Type of value:</term>
1939 <para>URL or URL prefix</para>
1943 <term>Default value:</term>
1949 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1952 No external pages are considered trusted referers.
1960 Before &my-app; accepts configuration changes through CGI pages like
1961 <link linkend="client-specific-tag">client-tags</link> or the
1962 <link linkend="enable-remote-toggle">remote toggle</link>, it checks
1963 the Referer header to see if the request comes from a trusted source.
1966 By default only the webinterface domains
1967 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">config.privoxy.org</ulink>
1969 <ulink url="http://p.p/">p.p</ulink>
1970 are considered trustworthy.
1971 Requests originating from other domains are rejected to prevent
1972 third-parties from modifiying Privoxy's state by e.g. embedding
1973 images that result in CGI requests.
1976 In some environments it may be desirable to embed links to CGI pages
1977 on external pages, for example on an Intranet homepage the Privoxy admin
1981 The <quote>trusted-cgi-referer</quote> option can be used to add that page,
1982 or the whole domain, as trusted source so the resulting requests aren't
1984 Requests are accepted if the specified trusted-cgi-refer is the prefix
1988 If the trusted source is supposed to access the CGI pages via
1989 JavaScript the <link linkend="cors-allowed-origin">cors-allowed-origin</link>
1994 Declaring pages the admin doesn't control trustworthy may allow
1995 malicious third parties to modify Privoxy's internal state against
1996 the user's wishes and without the user's knowledge.
2003 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#trusted-cgi-referer http://www.example.org/local-privoxy-control-page</literallayout>]]>
2007 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2008 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="cors-allowed-origin"><title>cors-allowed-origin</title>
2011 <term>Specifies:</term>
2014 A trusted website which can access &my-app;'s CGI pages through JavaScript.
2019 <term>Type of value:</term>
2025 <term>Default value:</term>
2031 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2034 No external sites get access via cross-origin resource sharing.
2042 Modern browsers by default prevent cross-origin requests made
2043 via JavaScript to &my-app;'s CGI interface even if &my-app;
2044 would trust the referer because it's white listed via the
2045 <link linkend="trusted-cgi-referer">trusted-cgi-referer</link>
2049 <ulink url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-origin_resource_sharing"
2050 >Cross-origin resource sharing (CORS)</ulink> is a mechanism to allow
2051 cross-origin requests.
2054 The <quote>cors-allowed-origin</quote> option can be used to specify
2055 a domain that is allowed to make requests to Privoxy CGI interface
2056 via JavaScript. It is used in combination with the
2057 <link linkend="trusted-cgi-referer">trusted-cgi-referer</link>
2062 Declaring domains the admin doesn't control trustworthy may allow
2063 malicious third parties to modify Privoxy's internal state against
2064 the user's wishes and without the user's knowledge.
2071 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#cors-allowed-origin http://www.example.org/</literallayout>]]>
2076 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2079 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2081 <sect2 id="forwarding">
2082 <title>Forwarding</title>
2085 This feature allows routing of HTTP requests through a chain of
2089 Forwarding can be used to chain Privoxy with a caching proxy to speed
2090 up browsing. Using a parent proxy may also be necessary if the machine
2091 that <application>Privoxy</application> runs on has no direct Internet access.
2094 Note that parent proxies can severely decrease your privacy level.
2095 For example a parent proxy could add your IP address to the request
2096 headers and if it's a caching proxy it may add the <quote>Etag</quote>
2097 header to revalidation requests again, even though you configured Privoxy
2098 to remove it. It may also ignore Privoxy's header time randomization and use the
2099 original values which could be used by the server as cookie replacement
2100 to track your steps between visits.
2104 Also specified here are SOCKS proxies. <application>Privoxy</application>
2105 supports the SOCKS 4 and SOCKS 4A protocols.
2108 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="forward"><title>forward</title>
2111 <term>Specifies:</term>
2114 To which parent HTTP proxy specific requests should be routed.
2119 <term>Type of value:</term>
2122 <replaceable class="parameter">target_pattern</replaceable>
2123 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2126 where <replaceable class="parameter">target_pattern</replaceable> is a <link linkend="af-patterns">URL pattern</link>
2127 that specifies to which requests (i.e. URLs) this forward rule shall apply. Use <literal>/</literal> to
2128 denote <quote>all URLs</quote>.
2129 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2130 is the DNS name or IP address of the parent HTTP proxy through which the requests should be forwarded,
2131 optionally followed by its listening port (default: 8000).
2132 Use a single dot (<literal>.</literal>) to denote <quote>no forwarding</quote>.
2137 <term>Default value:</term>
2139 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
2143 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2146 Don't use parent HTTP proxies.
2154 If <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is <quote>.</quote>, then requests are not
2155 forwarded to another HTTP proxy but are made directly to the web servers.
2158 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> can be a
2159 numerical IPv6 address (if
2160 <ulink url="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3493">RFC 3493</ulink> is
2161 implemented). To prevent clashes with the port delimiter, the whole IP
2162 address has to be put into brackets. On the other hand a <replaceable
2163 class="parameter">target_pattern</replaceable> containing an IPv6 address
2164 has to be put into angle brackets (normal brackets are reserved for
2165 regular expressions already).
2168 Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
2173 <term>Examples:</term>
2176 Everything goes to an example parent proxy, except SSL on port 443 (which it doesn't handle):
2179 forward / parent-proxy.example.org:8080
2183 Everything goes to our example ISP's caching proxy, except for requests
2184 to that ISP's sites:
2187 forward / caching-proxy.isp.example.net:8000
2188 forward .isp.example.net .
2191 Parent proxy specified by an IPv6 address:
2194 forward / [2001:DB8::1]:8000
2197 Suppose your parent proxy doesn't support IPv6:
2200 forward / parent-proxy.example.org:8000
2201 forward ipv6-server.example.org .
2202 forward <[2-3][0-9a-f][0-9a-f][0-9a-f]:*> .
2210 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2211 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="socks"><title>
2212 forward-socks4, forward-socks4a, forward-socks5 and forward-socks5t</title>
2213 <anchor id="forward-socks4">
2214 <anchor id="forward-socks4a">
2218 <term>Specifies:</term>
2221 Through which SOCKS proxy (and optionally to which parent HTTP proxy) specific requests should be routed.
2226 <term>Type of value:</term>
2229 <replaceable class="parameter">target_pattern</replaceable>
2230 [<replaceable class="parameter">user</replaceable>:<replaceable class="parameter">pass</replaceable>@]<replaceable class="parameter">socks_proxy</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2231 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2234 where <replaceable class="parameter">target_pattern</replaceable> is a
2235 <link linkend="af-patterns">URL pattern</link> that specifies to which
2236 requests (i.e. URLs) this forward rule shall apply. Use <literal>/</literal> to
2237 denote <quote>all URLs</quote>. <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>
2238 and <replaceable class="parameter">socks_proxy</replaceable>
2239 are IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or valid DNS names
2240 (<replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>
2241 may be <quote>.</quote> to denote <quote>no HTTP forwarding</quote>), and the optional
2242 <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> parameters are TCP ports,
2243 i.e. integer values from 1 to 65535. <replaceable class="parameter">user</replaceable> and
2244 <replaceable class="parameter">pass</replaceable> can be used for SOCKS5 authentication if required.
2249 <term>Default value:</term>
2251 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
2255 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2258 Don't use SOCKS proxies.
2266 Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
2269 The difference between <literal>forward-socks4</literal> and <literal>forward-socks4a</literal>
2270 is that in the SOCKS 4A protocol, the DNS resolution of the target hostname happens on the SOCKS
2271 server, while in SOCKS 4 it happens locally.
2274 With <literal>forward-socks5</literal> the DNS resolution will happen on the remote server as well.
2277 <literal>forward-socks5t</literal> works like vanilla <literal>forward-socks5</literal> but
2278 lets &my-app; additionally use Tor-specific SOCKS extensions. Currently the only supported
2279 SOCKS extension is optimistic data which can reduce the latency for the first request made
2280 on a newly created connection.
2283 <replaceable class="parameter">socks_proxy</replaceable> and
2284 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> can be a
2285 numerical IPv6 address (if
2286 <ulink url="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3493">RFC 3493</ulink> is
2287 implemented). To prevent clashes with the port delimiter, the whole IP
2288 address has to be put into brackets. On the other hand a <replaceable
2289 class="parameter">target_pattern</replaceable> containing an IPv6 address
2290 has to be put into angle brackets (normal brackets are reserved for
2291 regular expressions already).
2294 If <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is <quote>.</quote>, then requests are not
2295 forwarded to another HTTP proxy but are made (HTTP-wise) directly to the web servers, albeit through
2301 <term>Examples:</term>
2304 From the company example.com, direct connections are made to all
2305 <quote>internal</quote> domains, but everything outbound goes through
2306 their ISP's proxy by way of example.com's corporate SOCKS 4A gateway to
2310 forward-socks4a / socks-gw.example.com:1080 www-cache.isp.example.net:8080
2311 forward .example.com .
2314 A rule that uses a SOCKS 4 gateway for all destinations but no HTTP parent looks like this:
2317 forward-socks4 / socks-gw.example.com:1080 .
2321 To connect SOCKS5 proxy which requires username/password authentication:
2324 forward-socks5 / user:pass@socks-gw.example.com:1080 .
2328 To chain Privoxy and Tor, both running on the same system, you would use
2332 forward-socks5t / 127.0.0.1:9050 .
2335 Note that if you got Tor through one of the bundles, you may
2336 have to change the port from 9050 to 9150 (or even another one).
2337 For details, please check the documentation on the
2338 <ulink url="https://torproject.org/">Tor website</ulink>.
2341 The public <application>Tor</application> network can't be used to
2342 reach your local network, if you need to access local servers you
2343 therefore might want to make some exceptions:
2346 forward 192.168.*.*/ .
2348 forward 127.*.*.*/ .
2351 Unencrypted connections to systems in these address ranges will
2352 be as (un)secure as the local network is, but the alternative is that you
2353 can't reach the local network through <application>Privoxy</application>
2354 at all. Of course this may actually be desired and there is no reason
2355 to make these exceptions if you aren't sure you need them.
2358 If you also want to be able to reach servers in your local network by
2359 using their names, you will need additional exceptions that look like
2363 forward localhost/ .
2371 <![%user-man;[ <!-- not included in config due to length -->
2372 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2373 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="advanced-forwarding-examples"><title>Advanced Forwarding Examples</title>
2376 If you have links to multiple ISPs that provide various special content
2377 only to their subscribers, you can configure multiple <application>Privoxies</application>
2378 which have connections to the respective ISPs to act as forwarders to each other, so that
2379 <emphasis>your</emphasis> users can see the internal content of all ISPs.
2383 Assume that host-a has a PPP connection to isp-a.example.net. And host-b has a PPP connection to
2384 isp-b.example.org. Both run <application>Privoxy</application>. Their forwarding
2385 configuration can look like this:
2394 forward .isp-b.example.net host-b:8118
2403 forward .isp-a.example.org host-a:8118
2407 Now, your users can set their browser's proxy to use either
2408 host-a or host-b and be able to browse the internal content
2409 of both isp-a and isp-b.
2413 If you intend to chain <application>Privoxy</application> and
2414 <application>squid</application> locally, then chaining as
2415 <literal>browser -> squid -> privoxy</literal> is the recommended way.
2419 Assuming that <application>Privoxy</application> and <application>squid</application>
2420 run on the same box, your <application>squid</application> configuration could then look like this:
2424 # Define Privoxy as parent proxy (without ICP)
2425 cache_peer 127.0.0.1 parent 8118 7 no-query
2427 # Define ACL for protocol FTP
2430 # Do not forward FTP requests to Privoxy
2431 always_direct allow ftp
2433 # Forward all the rest to Privoxy
2434 never_direct allow all</screen>
2437 You would then need to change your browser's proxy settings to <application>squid</application>'s address and port.
2438 Squid normally uses port 3128. If unsure consult <literal>http_port</literal> in <filename>squid.conf</filename>.
2442 You could just as well decide to only forward requests you suspect
2443 of leading to Windows executables through a virus-scanning parent proxy,
2444 say, on <literal>antivir.example.com</literal>, port 8010:
2449 forward /.*\.(exe|com|dll|zip)$ antivir.example.com:8010</screen>
2454 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="forwarded-connect-retries"><title>forwarded-connect-retries</title>
2457 <term>Specifies:</term>
2460 How often Privoxy retries if a forwarded connection request fails.
2465 <term>Type of value:</term>
2468 <replaceable class="parameter">Number of retries.</replaceable>
2473 <term>Default value:</term>
2475 <para><emphasis>0</emphasis></para>
2479 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2482 Connections forwarded through other proxies are treated like direct connections and no retry attempts are made.
2490 <replaceable class="parameter">forwarded-connect-retries</replaceable> is mainly interesting
2491 for socks4a connections, where <application>Privoxy</application> can't detect why the connections failed.
2492 The connection might have failed because of a DNS timeout in which case a retry makes sense,
2493 but it might also have failed because the server doesn't exist or isn't reachable. In this
2494 case the retry will just delay the appearance of Privoxy's error message.
2497 Note that in the context of this option, <quote>forwarded connections</quote> includes all connections
2498 that Privoxy forwards through other proxies. This option is not limited to the HTTP CONNECT method.
2501 Only use this option, if you are getting lots of forwarding-related error messages
2502 that go away when you try again manually. Start with a small value and check Privoxy's
2503 logfile from time to time, to see how many retries are usually needed.
2508 <term>Examples:</term>
2511 forwarded-connect-retries 1
2516 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@forwarded-connect-retries 0</literallayout>]]>
2522 <title>Miscellaneous</title>
2524 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="accept-intercepted-requests"><title>accept-intercepted-requests</title>
2527 <term>Specifies:</term>
2530 Whether intercepted requests should be treated as valid.
2535 <term>Type of value:</term>
2538 <replaceable>0 or 1</replaceable>
2543 <term>Default value:</term>
2545 <para><emphasis>0</emphasis></para>
2549 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2552 Only proxy requests are accepted, intercepted requests are treated as invalid.
2560 If you don't trust your clients and want to force them
2561 to use <application>Privoxy</application>, enable this
2562 option and configure your packet filter to redirect outgoing
2563 HTTP connections into <application>Privoxy</application>.
2566 Note that intercepting encrypted connections (HTTPS) isn't supported.
2569 Make sure that <application>Privoxy's</application> own requests
2570 aren't redirected as well. Additionally take care that
2571 <application>Privoxy</application> can't intentionally connect
2572 to itself, otherwise you could run into redirection loops if
2573 <application>Privoxy's</application> listening port is reachable
2574 by the outside or an attacker has access to the pages you visit.
2577 If you are running Privoxy as intercepting proxy without being
2578 able to intercept all client requests you may want to adjust
2579 the CGI templates to make sure they don't reference content from
2585 <term>Examples:</term>
2588 accept-intercepted-requests 1
2593 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@accept-intercepted-requests 0</literallayout>]]>
2596 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="allow-cgi-request-crunching"><title>allow-cgi-request-crunching</title>
2599 <term>Specifies:</term>
2602 Whether requests to <application>Privoxy's</application> CGI pages can be blocked or redirected.
2607 <term>Type of value:</term>
2610 <replaceable>0 or 1</replaceable>
2615 <term>Default value:</term>
2617 <para><emphasis>0</emphasis></para>
2621 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2624 <application>Privoxy</application> ignores block and redirect actions for its CGI pages.
2632 By default <application>Privoxy</application> ignores block or redirect actions
2633 for its CGI pages. Intercepting these requests can be useful in multi-user
2634 setups to implement fine-grained access control, but it can also render the complete
2635 web interface useless and make debugging problems painful if done without care.
2638 Don't enable this option unless you're sure that you really need it.
2643 <term>Examples:</term>
2646 allow-cgi-request-crunching 1
2651 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@allow-cgi-request-crunching 0</literallayout>]]>
2654 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="split-large-forms"><title>split-large-forms</title>
2657 <term>Specifies:</term>
2660 Whether the CGI interface should stay compatible with broken HTTP clients.
2665 <term>Type of value:</term>
2668 <replaceable>0 or 1</replaceable>
2673 <term>Default value:</term>
2675 <para><emphasis>0</emphasis></para>
2679 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2682 The CGI form generate long GET URLs.
2690 <application>Privoxy's</application> CGI forms can lead to
2691 rather long URLs. This isn't a problem as far as the HTTP
2692 standard is concerned, but it can confuse clients with arbitrary
2693 URL length limitations.
2696 Enabling split-large-forms causes <application>Privoxy</application>
2697 to divide big forms into smaller ones to keep the URL length down.
2698 It makes editing a lot less convenient and you can no longer
2699 submit all changes at once, but at least it works around this
2703 If you don't notice any editing problems, there is no reason
2704 to enable this option, but if one of the submit buttons appears
2705 to be broken, you should give it a try.
2710 <term>Examples:</term>
2718 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@split-large-forms 0</literallayout>]]>
2721 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="keep-alive-timeout"><title>keep-alive-timeout</title>
2724 <term>Specifies:</term>
2727 Number of seconds after which an open connection will no longer be reused.
2732 <term>Type of value:</term>
2735 <replaceable>Time in seconds.</replaceable>
2740 <term>Default value:</term>
2746 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2749 Connections are not kept alive.
2757 This option allows clients to keep the connection to &my-app;
2758 alive. If the server supports it, &my-app; will keep
2759 the connection to the server alive as well. Under certain
2760 circumstances this may result in speed-ups.
2763 By default, &my-app; will close the connection to the server if
2764 the client connection gets closed, or if the specified timeout
2765 has been reached without a new request coming in. This behaviour
2766 can be changed with the <ulink
2767 url="#CONNECTION-SHARING">connection-sharing</ulink> option.
2770 This option has no effect if <application>Privoxy</application>
2771 has been compiled without keep-alive support.
2774 Note that a timeout of five seconds as used in the default
2775 configuration file significantly decreases the number of
2776 connections that will be reused. The value is used because
2777 some browsers limit the number of connections they open to
2778 a single host and apply the same limit to proxies. This can
2779 result in a single website <quote>grabbing</quote> all the
2780 connections the browser allows, which means connections to
2781 other websites can't be opened until the connections currently
2785 Several users have reported this as a Privoxy bug, so the
2786 default value has been reduced. Consider increasing it to
2787 300 seconds or even more if you think your browser can handle
2788 it. If your browser appears to be hanging, it probably can't.
2793 <term>Examples:</term>
2796 keep-alive-timeout 300
2801 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@keep-alive-timeout 5</literallayout>]]>
2805 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="tolerate-pipelining"><title>tolerate-pipelining</title>
2808 <term>Specifies:</term>
2811 Whether or not pipelined requests should be served.
2816 <term>Type of value:</term>
2819 <replaceable>0 or 1.</replaceable>
2824 <term>Default value:</term>
2830 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2833 If Privoxy receives more than one request at once, it terminates the
2834 client connection after serving the first one.
2842 &my-app; currently doesn't pipeline outgoing requests,
2843 thus allowing pipelining on the client connection is not
2844 guaranteed to improve the performance.
2847 By default &my-app; tries to discourage clients from pipelining
2848 by discarding aggressively pipelined requests, which forces the
2849 client to resend them through a new connection.
2852 This option lets &my-app; tolerate pipelining. Whether or not
2853 that improves performance mainly depends on the client configuration.
2856 If you are seeing problems with pages not properly loading,
2857 disabling this option could work around the problem.
2862 <term>Examples:</term>
2865 tolerate-pipelining 1
2870 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@tolerate-pipelining 1</literallayout>]]>
2874 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="default-server-timeout"><title>default-server-timeout</title>
2877 <term>Specifies:</term>
2880 Assumed server-side keep-alive timeout if not specified by the server.
2885 <term>Type of value:</term>
2888 <replaceable>Time in seconds.</replaceable>
2893 <term>Default value:</term>
2899 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2902 Connections for which the server didn't specify the keep-alive
2903 timeout are not reused.
2911 Enabling this option significantly increases the number of connections
2912 that are reused, provided the <ulink
2913 url="#KEEP-ALIVE-TIMEOUT">keep-alive-timeout</ulink> option
2917 While it also increases the number of connections problems
2918 when &my-app; tries to reuse a connection that already has
2919 been closed on the server side, or is closed while &my-app;
2920 is trying to reuse it, this should only be a problem if it
2921 happens for the first request sent by the client. If it happens
2922 for requests on reused client connections, &my-app; will simply
2923 close the connection and the client is supposed to retry the
2924 request without bothering the user.
2927 Enabling this option is therefore only recommended if the
2929 url="#CONNECTION-SHARING">connection-sharing</ulink> option
2933 It is an error to specify a value larger than the <ulink
2934 url="#KEEP-ALIVE-TIMEOUT">keep-alive-timeout</ulink> value.
2937 This option has no effect if <application>Privoxy</application>
2938 has been compiled without keep-alive support.
2943 <term>Examples:</term>
2946 default-server-timeout 60
2951 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#default-server-timeout 60</literallayout>]]>
2955 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="connection-sharing"><title>connection-sharing</title>
2958 <term>Specifies:</term>
2961 Whether or not outgoing connections that have been kept alive
2962 should be shared between different incoming connections.
2967 <term>Type of value:</term>
2970 <replaceable>0 or 1</replaceable>
2975 <term>Default value:</term>
2981 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2984 Connections are not shared.
2992 This option has no effect if <application>Privoxy</application>
2993 has been compiled without keep-alive support, or if it's disabled.
3001 Note that reusing connections doesn't necessary cause speedups.
3002 There are also a few privacy implications you should be aware of.
3005 If this option is effective, outgoing connections are shared between
3006 clients (if there are more than one) and closing the browser that initiated
3007 the outgoing connection does no longer affect the connection between &my-app;
3008 and the server unless the client's request hasn't been completed yet.
3011 If the outgoing connection is idle, it will not be closed until either
3012 <application>Privoxy's</application> or the server's timeout is reached.
3013 While it's open, the server knows that the system running &my-app; is still
3017 If there are more than one client (maybe even belonging to multiple users),
3018 they will be able to reuse each others connections. This is potentially
3019 dangerous in case of authentication schemes like NTLM where only the
3020 connection is authenticated, instead of requiring authentication for
3024 If there is only a single client, and if said client can keep connections
3025 alive on its own, enabling this option has next to no effect. If the client
3026 doesn't support connection keep-alive, enabling this option may make sense
3027 as it allows &my-app; to keep outgoing connections alive even if the client
3028 itself doesn't support it.
3031 You should also be aware that enabling this option increases the likelihood
3032 of getting the "No server or forwarder data" error message, especially if you
3033 are using a slow connection to the Internet.
3036 This option should only be used by experienced users who
3037 understand the risks and can weight them against the benefits.
3042 <term>Examples:</term>
3045 connection-sharing 1
3050 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#connection-sharing 1</literallayout>]]>
3054 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="socket-timeout"><title>socket-timeout</title>
3057 <term>Specifies:</term>
3060 Number of seconds after which a socket times out if
3061 no data is received.
3066 <term>Type of value:</term>
3069 <replaceable>Time in seconds.</replaceable>
3074 <term>Default value:</term>
3080 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
3083 A default value of 300 seconds is used.
3091 The default is quite high and you probably want to reduce it.
3092 If you aren't using an occasionally slow proxy like Tor, reducing
3093 it to a few seconds should be fine.
3098 <term>Examples:</term>
3106 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@socket-timeout 300</literallayout>]]>
3110 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="max-client-connections"><title>max-client-connections</title>
3113 <term>Specifies:</term>
3116 Maximum number of client connections that will be served.
3121 <term>Type of value:</term>
3124 <replaceable>Positive number.</replaceable>
3129 <term>Default value:</term>
3135 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
3138 Connections are served until a resource limit is reached.
3146 &my-app; creates one thread (or process) for every incoming client
3147 connection that isn't rejected based on the access control settings.
3150 If the system is powerful enough, &my-app; can theoretically deal with
3151 several hundred (or thousand) connections at the same time, but some
3152 operating systems enforce resource limits by shutting down offending
3153 processes and their default limits may be below the ones &my-app; would
3154 require under heavy load.
3157 Configuring &my-app; to enforce a connection limit below the thread
3158 or process limit used by the operating system makes sure this doesn't
3159 happen. Simply increasing the operating system's limit would work too,
3160 but if &my-app; isn't the only application running on the system,
3161 you may actually want to limit the resources used by &my-app;.
3164 If &my-app; is only used by a single trusted user, limiting the
3165 number of client connections is probably unnecessary. If there
3166 are multiple possibly untrusted users you probably still want to
3167 additionally use a packet filter to limit the maximal number of
3168 incoming connections per client. Otherwise a malicious user could
3169 intentionally create a high number of connections to prevent other
3170 users from using &my-app;.
3173 Obviously using this option only makes sense if you choose a limit
3174 below the one enforced by the operating system.
3177 One most POSIX-compliant systems &my-app; can't properly deal with
3178 more than FD_SETSIZE file descriptors at the same time and has to reject
3179 connections if the limit is reached. This will likely change in a
3180 future version, but currently this limit can't be increased without
3181 recompiling &my-app; with a different FD_SETSIZE limit.
3186 <term>Examples:</term>
3189 max-client-connections 256
3194 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#max-client-connections 256</literallayout>]]>
3198 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="listen-backlog"><title>listen-backlog</title>
3201 <term>Specifies:</term>
3204 Connection queue length requested from the operating system.
3209 <term>Type of value:</term>
3212 <replaceable>Number.</replaceable>
3217 <term>Default value:</term>
3223 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
3226 A connection queue length of 128 is requested from the operating system.
3234 Under high load incoming connection may queue up before Privoxy
3235 gets around to serve them. The queue length is limitted by the
3236 operating system. Once the queue is full, additional connections
3237 are dropped before Privoxy can accept and serve them.
3240 Increasing the queue length allows Privoxy to accept more
3241 incomming connections that arrive roughly at the same time.
3244 Note that Privoxy can only request a certain queue length,
3245 whether or not the requested length is actually used depends
3246 on the operating system which may use a different length instead.
3249 On many operating systems a limit of -1 can be specified to
3250 instruct the operating system to use the maximum queue length
3251 allowed. Check the listen man page to see if your platform allows this.
3254 On some platforms you can use "netstat -Lan -p tcp" to see the effective
3258 Effectively using a value above 128 usually requires changing
3259 the system configuration as well. On FreeBSD-based system the
3260 limit is controlled by the kern.ipc.soacceptqueue sysctl.
3265 <term>Examples:</term>
3273 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#listen-backlog -1</literallayout>]]>
3277 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="enable-accept-filter"><title>enable-accept-filter</title>
3280 <term>Specifies:</term>
3283 Whether or not Privoxy should use an accept filter
3288 <term>Type of value:</term>
3291 <replaceable>0 or 1</replaceable>
3296 <term>Default value:</term>
3302 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
3305 No accept filter is enabled.
3313 Accept filters reduce the number of context switches by not
3314 passing sockets for new connections to Privoxy until a complete
3315 HTTP request is available.
3318 As a result, Privoxy can process the whole request right away
3319 without having to wait for additional data first.
3322 For this option to work, Privoxy has to be compiled with
3323 FEATURE_ACCEPT_FILTER and the operating system has to support
3324 it (which may require loading a kernel module).
3327 Currently accept filters are only supported on FreeBSD-based
3329 <ulink url="https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=accf_http">accf_http(9)
3331 to learn how to enable the support in the operating system.
3336 <term>Examples:</term>
3339 enable-accept-filter 1
3344 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#enable-accept-filter 1</literallayout>]]>
3348 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-empty-doc-returns-ok"><title>handle-as-empty-doc-returns-ok</title>
3351 <term>Specifies:</term>
3354 The status code Privoxy returns for pages blocked with
3355 <!-- URL will only end up in the user manual so the relative link should work. -->
3356 <literal><ulink url="actions-file.html#HANDLE-AS-EMPTY-DOCUMENT">+handle-as-empty-document</ulink></literal>.
3361 <term>Type of value:</term>
3364 <replaceable>0 or 1</replaceable>
3369 <term>Default value:</term>
3375 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
3378 Privoxy returns a status 403(forbidden) for all blocked pages.
3383 <term>Effect if set:</term>
3386 Privoxy returns a status 200(OK) for pages blocked with +handle-as-empty-document
3387 and a status 403(Forbidden) for all other blocked pages.
3395 This directive was added as a work-around for Firefox bug 492459:
3396 <quote>Websites are no longer rendered if SSL requests for JavaScripts are blocked by a proxy.</quote>
3397 (<ulink url="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=492459">
3398 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=492459</ulink>),
3399 the bug has been fixed for quite some time, but this directive is also useful
3400 to make it harder for websites to detect whether or not resources are being
3406 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#handle-as-empty-doc-returns-ok 1</literallayout>]]>
3410 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="enable-compression"><title>enable-compression</title>
3413 <term>Specifies:</term>
3416 Whether or not buffered content is compressed before delivery.
3421 <term>Type of value:</term>
3424 <replaceable>0 or 1</replaceable>
3429 <term>Default value:</term>
3435 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
3438 Privoxy does not compress buffered content.
3443 <term>Effect if set:</term>
3446 Privoxy compresses buffered content before delivering it to the client,
3447 provided the client supports it.
3455 This directive is only supported if Privoxy has been compiled with
3456 FEATURE_COMPRESSION, which should not to be confused with FEATURE_ZLIB.
3459 Compressing buffered content is mainly useful if Privoxy and the
3460 client are running on different systems. If they are running on the
3461 same system, enabling compression is likely to slow things down.
3462 If you didn't measure otherwise, you should assume that it does
3463 and keep this option disabled.
3466 Privoxy will not compress buffered content below a certain length.
3471 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#enable-compression 1</literallayout>]]>
3475 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="compression-level"><title>compression-level</title>
3478 <term>Specifies:</term>
3481 The compression level that is passed to the zlib library when compressing buffered content.
3486 <term>Type of value:</term>
3489 <replaceable>Positive number ranging from 0 to 9.</replaceable>
3494 <term>Default value:</term>
3503 Compressing the data more takes usually longer than compressing
3504 it less or not compressing it at all. Which level is best depends
3505 on the connection between Privoxy and the client. If you can't
3506 be bothered to benchmark it for yourself, you should stick with
3507 the default and keep compression disabled.
3510 If compression is disabled, the compression level is irrelevant.
3515 <term>Examples:</term>
3518 # Best speed (compared to the other levels)
3524 # No compression. Only useful for testing as the added header
3525 # slightly increases the amount of data that has to be sent.
3526 # If your benchmark shows that using this compression level
3527 # is superior to using no compression at all, the benchmark
3528 # is likely to be flawed.
3534 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#compression-level 1</literallayout>]]>
3538 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-order"><title>client-header-order</title>
3541 <term>Specifies:</term>
3544 The order in which client headers are sorted before forwarding them.
3549 <term>Type of value:</term>
3552 <replaceable>Client header names delimited by spaces or tabs</replaceable>
3557 <term>Default value:</term>
3566 By default &my-app; leaves the client headers in the order they
3567 were sent by the client. Headers are modified in-place, new headers
3568 are added at the end of the already existing headers.
3571 The header order can be used to fingerprint client requests
3572 independently of other headers like the User-Agent.
3575 This directive allows to sort the headers differently to better
3576 mimic a different User-Agent. Client headers will be emitted
3577 in the order given, headers whose name isn't explicitly specified
3578 are added at the end.
3581 Note that sorting headers in an uncommon way will make fingerprinting
3582 actually easier. Encrypted headers are not affected by this directive.
3587 <![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#client-header-order Host \
3604 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-specific-tag"><title>client-specific-tag</title>
3607 <term>Specifies:</term>
3610 The name of a tag that will always be set for clients that
3611 requested it through the webinterface.
3616 <term>Type of value:</term>
3619 <replaceable>Tag name followed by a description that will be shown in the webinterface</replaceable>
3624 <term>Default value:</term>
3634 This is an experimental feature. The syntax is likely to change
3639 Client-specific tags allow Privoxy admins to create different
3640 profiles and let the users chose which one they want without
3641 impacting other users.
3644 One use case is allowing users to circumvent certain blocks
3645 without having to allow them to circumvent all blocks.
3646 This is not possible with the
3647 <link linkend="enable-remote-toggle">enable-remote-toggle feature</link>
3648 because it would bluntly disable all blocks for all users and also affect
3649 other actions like filters.
3650 It also is set globally which renders it useless in most multi-user setups.
3653 After a client-specific tag has been defined with the client-specific-tag
3654 directive, action sections can be activated based on the tag by using a
3655 <ulink url="actions-file.html#CLIENT-TAG-PATTERN">CLIENT-TAG</ulink> pattern.
3656 The CLIENT-TAG pattern is evaluated at the same priority
3657 as URL patterns, as a result the last matching pattern wins.
3658 Tags that are created based on client or server headers are evaluated
3659 later on and can overrule CLIENT-TAG and URL patterns!
3662 The tag is set for all requests that come from clients that requested
3664 Note that "clients" are differentiated by IP address,
3665 if the IP address changes the tag has to be requested again.
3668 Clients can request tags to be set by using the CGI interface <ulink
3669 url="http://config.privoxy.org/client-tags">http://config.privoxy.org/client-tags</ulink>.
3670 The specific tag description is only used on the web page and should
3671 be phrased in away that the user understand the effect of the tag.
3676 <term>Examples:</term>
3679 # Define a couple of tags, the described effect requires action sections
3680 # that are enabled based on CLIENT-TAG patterns.
3681 client-specific-tag circumvent-blocks Overrule blocks but do not affect other actions
3682 disable-content-filters Disable content-filters but do not affect other actions
3689 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3691 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-tag-lifetime"><title>client-tag-lifetime</title>
3694 <term>Specifies:</term>
3697 How long a temporarily enabled tag remains enabled.
3702 <term>Type of value:</term>
3705 <replaceable>Time in seconds.</replaceable>
3710 <term>Default value:</term>
3720 This is an experimental feature. The syntax is likely to change
3725 In case of some tags users may not want to enable them permanently,
3726 but only for a short amount of time, for example to circumvent a block
3727 that is the result of an overly-broad URL pattern.
3730 The CGI interface <ulink
3731 url="http://config.privoxy.org/client-tags">http://config.privoxy.org/client-tags</ulink>
3732 therefore provides a "enable this tag temporarily" option.
3733 If it is used, the tag will be set until the client-tag-lifetime