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2 <!entity % dummy "INCLUDE">
3 <!entity supported SYSTEM "supported.sgml">
4 <!entity newfeatures SYSTEM "newfeatures.sgml">
5 <!entity p-intro SYSTEM "privoxy.sgml">
6 <!entity seealso SYSTEM "seealso.sgml">
7 <!entity buildsource SYSTEM "buildsource.sgml">
8 <!entity contacting SYSTEM "contacting.sgml">
9 <!entity history SYSTEM "history.sgml">
10 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
11 <!entity p-version "2.9.13">
12 <!entity p-status "BETA">
13 <!entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"> <!-- set to IGNORE for stable release -->
14 <!entity % p-stable "IGNORE"> <!-- set INCLUDE for stable release -->
15 <!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
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17 <!entity % p-readme "IGNORE">
18 <!entity % p-supp-userman "IGNORE"> <!-- Omit some from supported.sgml -->
21 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
24 This file belongs into
25 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
27 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9 Exp $
29 Written by and Copyright (C) 2001 the SourceForge
30 Privoxy team. http://www.privoxy.org/
32 Based on the Internet Junkbuster originally written
33 by and Copyright (C) 1997 Anonymous Coders and
34 Junkbusters Corporation. http://www.junkbusters.com
40 <title>Privoxy User Manual</title>
42 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9 Exp $</pubdate>
47 <orgname>By: Privoxy Developers</orgname>
56 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
57 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
58 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
64 The user manual gives users information on how to install, configure and use
65 <application>Privoxy</application>.
69 Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate:
74 You can find the latest version of the user manual at <ulink
75 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
79 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
86 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
88 <sect1 id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
91 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
92 <application>Privoxy</application> and is mostly complete at this
93 point. The most up to date reference for the time being is still the comments
94 in the source files and in the individual configuration files. Development
95 of version 3.0 is currently nearing completion, and includes many significant
96 changes and enhancements over earlier versions. The target release date for
97 stable v3.0 is <quote>soon</quote> ;-)
101 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
103 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
104 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
105 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
110 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
112 <title>New Features</title>
114 In addition to <application>Internet Junkbuster's</application> traditional
115 feature of ad and banner blocking and cookie management,
116 <application>Privoxy</application> provides new features<![%p-not-stable;[,
117 some of them currently under development]]>:
120 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
122 <!-- end boilerplate -->
128 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
131 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
132 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
134 <application>Privoxy</application> is available as raw source code (tarball
135 or via CVS), or pre-compiled binaries for various platforms. See the <ulink
136 url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project Page</ulink> for
137 the most up to date release information.
138 <application>Privoxy</application> is also available via <ulink
139 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/ijbswa/current/">CVS</ulink>.
140 <![%p-not-stable;[This is the recommended approach at this time.]]> But
141 please be aware that CVS is constantly changing, and it may break in
145 <!-- Include supported.sgml boilerplate -->
147 <!-- end boilerplate -->
149 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
150 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Source</title>
153 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
155 <!-- end boilerplate -->
158 For Redhat and SuSE Linux RPM packages, see below.
162 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
163 <sect3 id="installation-rh"><title>Red Hat</title>
165 To build Redhat RPM packages from source, install source as above. Then:
178 This will create both binary and src RPMs in the usual places. Example:
182 /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i686/privoxy-&p-version;-1.i686.rpm
185 /usr/src/redhat/SRPMS/privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm
189 To install, of course:
194 rpm -Uvv /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i686/privoxy-&p-version;-1.i686.rpm
199 This will place the <application>Privoxy</application> configuration
200 files in <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename>, and log files in
201 <filename>/var/log/privoxy/</filename>. Run
202 <command>ckconfig privoxy on</command> to have
203 <application>Privoxy</application> start automatically during init.
209 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
210 <sect3 id="installation-suse"><title>SuSE</title>
212 To build SuSE RPM packages, install source as above. Then:
225 This will create both binary and src RPMs in the usual places. Example:
229 /usr/src/packages/RPMS/i686/privoxy-&p-version;-1.i686.rpm
232 /usr/src/packages/SRPMS/privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm
236 To install, of course:
241 rpm -Uvv /usr/src/packages/RPMS/i686/privoxy-&p-version;-1.i686.rpm
246 This will place the <application>Privoxy</application> configuration
247 files in <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename>, and log files in
248 <filename>/var/log/privoxy/</filename>.
254 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
255 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
262 <application>Privoxy</application> is packaged in a WarpIN self-
263 installing archive. The self-installing program will be named depending
264 on the release version, something like:
265 <filename>privoxyos2_setup_&p-version;.exe</filename>. In order to install it, simply
266 run this executable or double-click on its icon and follow the WarpIN
267 installation panels. A shadow of the <application>Privoxy</application>
268 executable will be placed in your startup folder so it will start
269 automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
273 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
274 into will contain all of the configuration files.
278 If you would like to build binary images on OS/2 yourself, you will need
279 a few Unix-like tools: autoconf, autoheader and sh. These tools will be
280 used to create the required config.h file, which is not part of the
281 source distribution because it differs based on platform. You will also
283 The distribution has been created using IBM VisualAge compilers, but you
284 can use any compiler you like. GCC/EMX has the disadvantage of needing
285 to be single-threaded due to a limitation of EMX's implementation of the
286 select() socket call.
290 In addition to needing the source code distribution as outlined earlier,
291 you will want to extract the <filename>os2seutp</filename> directory from CVS:
293 cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa login
294 cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa co os2setup
296 This will create a directory named os2setup/, which will contain the
297 <filename>Makefile.vac</filename> makefile and <filename>os2build.cmd</filename>
298 which is used to completely create the binary distribution. The sequence
299 of events for building the executable for yourself goes something like this:
306 nmake -f Makefile.vac
308 You will see this sequence laid out in <filename>os2build.cmd</filename>.
314 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
315 <sect3 id="installation-win"><title>Windows</title>
316 <para>Click-click. (I need help on this. Not a clue here. Also for
317 configuration section below. HB.)
321 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
322 <sect3 id="installation-other"><title>Other</title>
324 Some quick notes on other Operating Systems.
328 For FreeBSD (and other *BSDs?), the build will require <command>gmake</command>
329 instead of the included <command>make</command>. <command>gmake</command> is
330 available from <ulink url="http://www.gnu.org">http://www.gnu.org</ulink>.
331 The rest should be the same as above for Linux/Unix.
339 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
342 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
344 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using <application>Privoxy</application></title>
346 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
347 will want to configure your browser(s) to use <application>Privoxy</application>
348 as a HTTP and HTTPS proxy. The default is localhost for the proxy address,
349 and port 8118 (earlier versions used port 800). This is the one required
350 configuration that must be done!
354 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
355 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under <literal>Edit
356 -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Proxies -> HTTP Proxy</literal>.
357 For <application>Internet Explorer</application>: <literal>Tools ->
358 Internet Properties -> Connections -> LAN Setting</literal>. Then,
359 check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info (Address:
360 localhost, Port: 8118). Include if HTTPS proxy support too.
364 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
365 re-reading of all pages and get rid of any ads that may be cached. You
366 are now ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
367 <application>Privoxy</application>.
372 <application>Privoxy</application> is typically started by specifying the
373 main configuration file to be used on the command line. Example Unix startup
380 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
386 An init script is provided for SuSE and Redhat.
390 For for SuSE: /etc/rc.d/privoxy start
394 For RedHat: /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
399 If no configuration file is specified on the command line,
400 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
401 <filename>config</filename> in the current directory. Except on Win32 where
402 it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>. If no file is specified on the
403 command line and no default configuration file can be found,
404 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
409 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
410 point, though may be somewhat aggressive in blocking junk. Most of the
411 per site configuration is done in the <quote>actions</quote> files. These
412 are where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking,
413 and other aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There
414 are several such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
418 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites that require persistent
419 cookies, and add these to <filename>default.action</filename> as needed. By
420 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
421 session, until you add them to the configuration. If you want the browser to
422 handle this instead, you will need to edit
423 <filename>default.action</filename> and disable this feature. If you use more
424 than one browser, it would make more sense to let
425 <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which case, the browser(s)
426 should be set to accept all cookies.
430 <application>Privoxy</application> is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all 1.1
431 features are as yet implemented. If browsers that support HTTP/1.1 (like
432 <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.) experience
433 problems, you might try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look
434 under <literal>Edit -> Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
435 Or set the <quote>+downgrade</quote> config option in
436 <filename>default.action</filename>.
440 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
441 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
442 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
443 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote> (as specified in <filename>default.action</filename>)
444 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
445 <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>,
446 and then follow the link to <quote>edit the actions list</quote>.
447 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
451 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
452 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
453 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
454 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
455 to a given URL. In addition to the <filename>default.action</filename> file
456 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
457 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> from this page.
461 If you encounter problems, please verify it is a
462 <application>Privoxy</application> bug, by disabling
463 <application>Privoxy</application>, and then trying the same page.
464 Also, try another browser if possible to eliminate browser or site
465 problems. Before reporting it as a bug, see if there is not a configuration
466 option that is enabled that is causing the page not to load. You can then add
467 an exception for that page or site. For instance, try adding it to the
468 <literal>{fragile}</literal> section of <filename>default.action</filename>.
469 This will turn off most actions for this site. For more on troubleshooting
470 problem sites, see the <ulink
471 url="appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</ulink>. If a bug, please report it
472 to the developers (see below).
476 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
479 <title>Command Line Options</title>
481 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
482 command-line options:
490 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
493 Print version info and exit, Unix only.
498 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
501 Print a short usage info and exit, Unix only.
506 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
509 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
510 leader, don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
515 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
519 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
520 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failiure to create or delete the
521 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
522 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
527 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
531 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
532 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
533 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
538 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
541 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
542 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
543 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
544 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
545 full path to avoid confusion.
556 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
559 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
560 <sect1 id="configuration"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Configuration</title>
562 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
563 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
564 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
565 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
570 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
573 <title>Controlling <application>Privoxy</application> with Your Web Browser</title>
575 <application>Privoxy</application> can be reached by the special
576 URL <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (or alternately
577 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>),
578 which is an internal page. You will see the following section:
585 Please choose from the following options:
587 * Show information about the current configuration
588 * Show the source code version numbers
589 * Show the client's request headers.
590 * Show which actions apply to a URL and why
591 * Toggle Privoxy on or off
592 * Edit the actions list
598 This should be self-explanatory. Note the last item is an editor for the
599 <quote>actions list</quote>, which is where much of the ad, banner, cookie,
600 and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
601 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
602 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
603 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
604 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically detect any changes
609 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
610 have problems with your current actions and filters, or just to test if
611 a site misbehaves, whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
612 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
613 to run as a proxy in this case, but all filtering is disabled.
619 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
624 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
627 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
629 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
630 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
631 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
632 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. The name and number of
633 configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is subject to
634 change as development progresses.
638 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though possibly
639 aggressive by some standards. For the time being, there are only three
640 default configuration files (this will change in time):
648 The main configuration file is named <filename>config</filename>
649 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
656 The <filename>default.action</filename> file is used to define various
657 <quote>actions</quote> relating to images, banners, pop-ups, access
658 restrictions, banners and cookies. There is a CGI based editor for this
659 file that can be accessed via <ulink
660 url="http://p.p">http://p.p</ulink>. (Other actions
661 files are included as well with differing levels of filtering
662 and blocking, e.g. <filename>basic.action</filename>.)
668 The <filename>default.filter</filename> file can be used to re-write the raw
669 page content, including viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript,
670 and whatever else lurks on any given web page.
678 <filename>default.action</filename> and <filename>default.filter</filename>
679 can use Perl style regular expressions for maximum flexibility. All files use
680 the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a comment. Such
681 lines are not processed by <application>Privoxy</application>. After
682 making any changes, there is no need to restart
683 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
684 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> should detect such changes
689 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
690 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
691 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
692 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
697 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
700 <title>The Main Configuration File</title>
702 Again, the main configuration file is named <filename>config</filename> on
703 Linux/Unix/BSD and OS/2, and <filename>config.txt</filename> on Windows.
704 Configuration lines consist of an initial keyword followed by a list of
705 values, all separated by whitespace (any number of spaces or tabs). For
713 <emphasis>blockfile blocklist.ini</emphasis>
720 Indicates that the blockfile is named <quote>blocklist.ini</quote>. (A
721 default installation does not use this.)
725 A <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> indicates a comment. Any part of a
726 line following a <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> is ignored, except if
727 the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> is preceded by a
728 <quote><literal>\</literal></quote>.
732 Thus, by placing a <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> at the start of an
733 existing configuration line, you can make it a comment and it will be treated
734 as if it weren't there. This is called <quote>commenting out</quote> an
735 option and can be useful to turn off features: If you comment out the
736 <quote>logfile</quote> line, <application>Privoxy</application> will not
737 log to a file at all. Watch for the <quote>default:</quote> section in each
738 explanation to see what happens if the option is left unset (or commented
743 Long lines can be continued on the next line by using a
744 <quote><literal>\</literal></quote> as the very last character.
748 There are various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> behavior
753 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
756 <title>Defining Other Configuration Files</title>
759 <application>Privoxy</application> can use a number of other files to tell it
760 what ads to block, what cookies to accept, and perform other functions. This
761 section of the configuration file tells <application>Privoxy</application>
762 where to find all those other files.
766 On <application>Windows</application> and <application>AmigaOS</application>,
767 <application>Privoxy</application> looks for these files in the same
768 directory as the executable. On Unix and OS/2,
769 <application>Privoxy</application> looks for these files in the current
770 working directory. In either case, an absolute path name can be used to
775 When development goes modular and multi-user, the blocker, filter, and
776 per-user config will be stored in subdirectories of <quote>confdir</quote>.
777 For now, only <filename>confdir/templates</filename> is used for storing HTML
778 templates for CGI results.
782 The location of the configuration files:
789 <emphasis>confdir /etc/privoxy</emphasis> # No trailing /, please.
796 The directory where all logging (i.e. <filename>logfile</filename> and
797 <filename>jarfile</filename>) takes place. No trailing
798 <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please:
805 <emphasis>logdir /var/log/privoxy</emphasis>
812 Note that all file specifications below are relative to
813 the above two directories!
817 The <quote>default.action</quote> file contains patterns to specify the
818 actions to apply to requests for each site. Default: Cookies to and from all
819 destinations are kept only during the current browser session (i.e. they are
820 not saved to disk). Pop-ups are disabled for all sites. All sites are
821 filtered through selected sections of <quote>default.filter</quote>. No sites
822 are blocked. <application>Privoxy</application> displays a checkboard type
823 pattern for filtered ads and other images. The syntax of this file is
824 explained in detail <link linkend="actionsfile">below</link>. Other
825 <quote>actions</quote> files are included, and you are free to use any of
826 them. They have varying degrees of aggressiveness.
833 <emphasis>actionsfile default.action</emphasis>
840 The <quote>default.filter</quote> file contains content modification rules
841 that use <quote>regular expressions</quote>. These rules permit powerful
842 changes on the content of Web pages, e.g., you could disable your favorite
843 JavaScript annoyances, re-write the actual displayed text, or just have some
844 fun replacing <quote>Microsoft</quote> with <quote>MicroSuck</quote> wherever
845 it appears on a Web page. Default: whatever the developers are playing with
850 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to slow down
851 page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has passed
852 the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way since
853 the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more noticeable
854 on slower connections.
862 <emphasis>filterfile default.filter</emphasis>
869 The logfile is where all logging and error messages are written. The logfile
870 can be useful for tracking down a problem with
871 <application>Privoxy</application> (e.g., it's not blocking an ad you
872 think it should block) but in most cases you probably will never look at it.
876 Your logfile will grow indefinitely, and you will probably want to
877 periodically remove it. On Unix systems, you can do this with a cron job
878 (see <quote>man cron</quote>). For Redhat, a <command>logrotate</command>
879 script has been included.
883 On SuSE Linux systems, you can place a line like <quote>/var/log/privoxy.*
884 +1024k 644 nobody.nogroup</quote> in <filename>/etc/logfiles</filename>, with
885 the effect that cron.daily will automatically archive, gzip, and empty the
886 log, when it exceeds 1M size.
890 Default: Log to the a file named <filename>logfile</filename>.
891 Comment out to disable logging.
898 <emphasis>logfile logfile</emphasis>
905 The <quote>jarfile</quote> defines where
906 <application>Privoxy</application> stores the cookies it intercepts. Note
907 that if you use a <quote>jarfile</quote>, it may grow quite large. Default:
908 Don't store intercepted cookies.
915 <emphasis>#jarfile jarfile</emphasis>
922 If you specify a <quote>trustfile</quote>,
923 <application>Privoxy</application> will only allow access to sites that
924 are named in the trustfile. You can also mark sites as trusted referrers,
925 with the effect that access to untrusted sites will be granted, if a link
926 from a trusted referrer was used. The link target will then be added to the
927 <quote>trustfile</quote>. This is a very restrictive feature that typical
928 users most probably want to leave disabled. Default: Disabled, don't use the
936 <emphasis>#trustfile trust</emphasis>
943 If you use the trust mechanism, it is a good idea to write up some on-line
944 documentation about your blocking policy and to specify the URL(s) here. They
945 will appear on the page that your users receive when they try to access
946 untrusted content. Use multiple times for multiple URLs. Default: Don't
947 display links on the <quote>untrusted</quote> info page.
954 <emphasis>trust-info-url http://www.example.com/why_we_block.html</emphasis>
955 <emphasis>trust-info-url http://www.example.com/what_we_allow.html</emphasis>
963 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
967 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
970 <title>Other Configuration Options</title>
973 This part of the configuration file contains options that control how
974 <application>Privoxy</application> operates.
978 <quote>Admin-address</quote> should be set to the email address of the proxy
979 administrator. It is used in many of the proxy-generated pages. Default:
987 <emphasis>#admin-address fill@me.in.please</emphasis>
994 <quote>Proxy-info-url</quote> can be set to a URL that contains more info
995 about this <application>Privoxy</application> installation, it's
996 configuration and policies. It is used in many of the proxy-generated pages
997 and its use is highly recommended in multi-user installations, since your
998 users will want to know why certain content is blocked or modified. Default:
999 Don't show a link to on-line documentation.
1006 <emphasis>proxy-info-url http://www.example.com/proxy.html</emphasis>
1013 <quote>Listen-address</quote> specifies the address and port where
1014 <application>Privoxy</application> will listen for connections from your
1015 Web browser. The default is to listen on the localhost port 8118, and
1016 this is suitable for most users. (In your web browser, under proxy
1017 configuration, list the proxy server as <quote>localhost</quote> and the
1018 port as <quote>8118</quote>).
1022 If you already have another service running on port 8118, or if you want to
1023 serve requests from other machines (e.g. on your local network) as well, you
1024 will need to override the default. The syntax is
1025 <quote>listen-address [<ip-address>]:<port></quote>. If you leave
1026 out the IP address, <application>Privoxy</application> will bind to all
1027 interfaces (addresses) on your machine and may become reachable from the
1028 Internet. In that case, consider using access control lists (acl's) (see
1029 <quote>aclfile</quote> above), or a firewall.
1033 For example, suppose you are running <application>Privoxy</application> on
1034 a machine which has the address 192.168.0.1 on your local private network
1035 (192.168.0.0) and has another outside connection with a different address.
1036 You want it to serve requests from inside only:
1043 <emphasis>listen-address 192.168.0.1:8118</emphasis>
1050 If you want it to listen on all addresses (including the outside
1058 <emphasis>listen-address :8118</emphasis>
1065 If you do this, consider using ACLs (see <quote>aclfile</quote> above). Note:
1066 you will need to point your browser(s) to the address and port that you have
1067 configured here. Default: localhost:8118 (127.0.0.1:8118).
1071 The debug option sets the level of debugging information to log in the
1072 logfile (and to the console in the Windows version). A debug level of 1 is
1073 informative because it will show you each request as it happens. Higher
1074 levels of debug are probably only of interest to developers.
1081 debug 1 # GPC = show each GET/POST/CONNECT request
1082 debug 2 # CONN = show each connection status
1083 debug 4 # IO = show I/O status
1084 debug 8 # HDR = show header parsing
1085 debug 16 # LOG = log all data into the logfile
1086 debug 32 # FRC = debug force feature
1087 debug 64 # REF = debug regular expression filter
1088 debug 128 # = debug fast redirects
1089 debug 256 # = debug GIF de-animation
1090 debug 512 # CLF = Common Log Format
1091 debug 1024 # = debug kill pop-ups
1092 debug 4096 # INFO = Startup banner and warnings.
1093 debug 8192 # ERROR = Non-fatal errors
1100 It is <emphasis>highly recommended</emphasis> that you enable ERROR
1101 reporting (debug 8192), at least until v3.0 is released.
1105 The reporting of FATAL errors (i.e. ones which crash
1106 <application>Privoxy</application>) is always on and cannot be disabled.
1110 If you want to use CLF (Common Log Format), you should set <quote>debug
1111 512</quote> ONLY, do not enable anything else.
1115 Multiple <quote>debug</quote> directives, are OK - they're logical-OR'd
1123 <emphasis>debug 15 # same as setting the first 4 listed above</emphasis>
1137 <emphasis>debug 1 # URLs</emphasis>
1138 <emphasis>debug 4096 # Info</emphasis>
1139 <emphasis>debug 8192 # Errors - *we highly recommended enabling this*</emphasis>
1146 <application>Privoxy</application> normally uses
1147 <quote>multi-threading</quote>, a software technique that permits it to
1148 handle many different requests simultaneously. In some cases you may wish to
1149 disable this -- particularly if you're trying to debug a problem. The
1150 <quote>single-threaded</quote> option forces
1151 <application>Privoxy</application> to handle requests sequentially.
1152 Default: Multi-threaded mode.
1159 <emphasis>#single-threaded</emphasis>
1166 <quote>toggle</quote> allows you to temporarily disable all
1167 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering. Just set <quote>toggle
1172 The Windows version of <application>Privoxy</application> puts an icon in
1173 the system tray, which also allows you to change this option. If you
1174 right-click on that icon (or select the <quote>Options</quote> menu), one
1175 choice is <quote>Enable</quote>. Clicking on enable toggles
1176 <application>Privoxy</application> on and off. This is useful if you want
1177 to temporarily disable <application>Privoxy</application>, e.g., to access
1178 a site that requires cookies which you would otherwise have blocked. This can also
1179 be toggled via a web browser at the <application>Privoxy</application>
1180 internal address of <ulink url="http://p.p">http://p.p</ulink> on
1185 <quote>toggle 1</quote> means <application>Privoxy</application> runs
1186 normally, <quote>toggle 0</quote> means that
1187 <application>Privoxy</application> becomes a non-anonymizing non-blocking
1188 proxy. Default: 1 (on).
1195 <emphasis>toggle 1</emphasis>
1202 For content filtering, i.e. the <quote>+filter</quote> and
1203 <quote>+deanimate-gif</quote> actions, it is necessary that
1204 <application>Privoxy</application> buffers the entire document body.
1205 This can be potentially dangerous, since a server could just keep sending
1206 data indefinitely and wait for your RAM to exhaust. With nasty consequences.
1210 The <application>buffer-limit</application> option lets you set the maximum
1211 size in Kbytes that each buffer may use. When the documents buffer exceeds
1212 this size, it is flushed to the client unfiltered and no further attempt to
1213 filter the rest of it is made. Remember that there may multiple threads
1214 running, which might require increasing the <quote>buffer-limit</quote>
1215 Kbytes <emphasis>each</emphasis>, unless you have enabled
1216 <quote>single-threaded</quote> above.
1223 <emphasis>buffer-limit 4069</emphasis>
1230 To enable the web-based <filename>default.action</filename> file editor set
1231 <application>enable-edit-actions</application> to 1, or 0 to disable. Note
1232 that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
1233 support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect. This
1234 internal page can be reached at <ulink
1235 url="http://p.p">http://p.p</ulink>.
1239 Security note: If this is enabled, anyone who can use the proxy
1240 can edit the actions file, and their changes will affect all users.
1241 For shared proxies, you probably want to disable this. Default: enabled.
1248 <emphasis>enable-edit-actions 1</emphasis>
1255 Allow <application>Privoxy</application> to be toggled on and off
1256 remotely, using your web browser. Set <quote>enable-remote-toggle</quote>to
1257 1 to enable, and 0 to disable. Note that you must have compiled
1258 <application>Privoxy</application> with support for this feature,
1259 otherwise this option has no effect.
1263 Security note: If this is enabled, anyone who can use the proxy can toggle
1264 it on or off (see <ulink url="http://p.p">http://p.p</ulink>), and
1265 their changes will affect all users. For shared proxies, you probably want to
1266 disable this. Default: enabled.
1273 <emphasis>enable-remote-toggle 1</emphasis>
1281 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1284 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1287 <title>Access Control List (ACL)</title>
1289 Access controls are included at the request of some ISPs and systems
1290 administrators, and are not usually needed by individual users. Please note
1291 the warnings in the FAQ that this proxy is not intended to be a substitute
1292 for a firewall or to encourage anyone to defer addressing basic security
1297 If no access settings are specified, the proxy talks to anyone that
1298 connects. If any access settings file are specified, then the proxy
1299 talks only to IP addresses permitted somewhere in this file and not
1300 denied later in this file.
1304 Summary -- if using an ACL:
1309 Client must have permission to receive service.
1314 LAST match in ACL wins.
1319 Default behavior is to deny service.
1324 The syntax for an entry in the Access Control List is:
1331 ACTION SRC_ADDR[/SRC_MASKLEN] [ DST_ADDR[/DST_MASKLEN] ]
1338 Where the individual fields are:
1345 <emphasis>ACTION</emphasis> = <quote>permit-access</quote> or <quote>deny-access</quote>
1347 <emphasis>SRC_ADDR</emphasis> = client hostname or dotted IP address
1348 <emphasis>SRC_MASKLEN</emphasis> = number of bits in the subnet mask for the source
1350 <emphasis>DST_ADDR</emphasis> = server or forwarder hostname or dotted IP address
1351 <emphasis>DST_MASKLEN</emphasis> = number of bits in the subnet mask for the target
1359 The field separator (FS) is whitespace (space or tab).
1363 IMPORTANT NOTE: If <application>Privoxy</application> is using a
1364 forwarder (see below) or a gateway for a particular destination URL, the
1365 <literal>DST_ADDR</literal> that is examined is the address of the forwarder
1366 or the gateway and <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the address of the ultimate
1367 target. This is necessary because it may be impossible for the local
1368 <application>Privoxy</application> to determine the address of the
1369 ultimate target (that's often what gateways are used for).
1373 Here are a few examples to show how the ACL features work:
1377 <quote>localhost</quote> is OK -- no DST_ADDR implies that
1378 <emphasis>ALL</emphasis> destination addresses are OK:
1385 <emphasis>permit-access localhost</emphasis>
1392 A silly example to illustrate permitting any host on the class-C subnet with
1393 <application>Privoxy</application> to go anywhere:
1400 <emphasis>permit-access www.privoxy.com/24</emphasis>
1407 Except deny one particular IP address from using it at all:
1414 <emphasis>deny-access ident.privoxy.com</emphasis>
1421 You can also specify an explicit network address and subnet mask.
1422 Explicit addresses do not have to be resolved to be used.
1429 <emphasis>permit-access 207.153.200.0/24</emphasis>
1436 A subnet mask of 0 matches anything, so the next line permits everyone.
1443 <emphasis>permit-access 0.0.0.0/0</emphasis>
1450 Note, you <emphasis>cannot</emphasis> say:
1457 <emphasis>permit-access .org</emphasis>
1464 to allow all *.org domains. Every IP address listed must resolve fully.
1468 An ISP may want to provide a <application>Privoxy</application> that is
1469 accessible by <quote>the world</quote> and yet restrict use of some of their
1470 private content to hosts on its internal network (i.e. its own subscribers).
1471 Say, for instance the ISP owns the Class-B IP address block 123.124.0.0 (a 16
1472 bit netmask). This is how they could do it:
1479 <emphasis>permit-access 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0</emphasis> # other clients can go anywhere
1480 # with the following exceptions:
1482 <emphasis>deny-access</emphasis> 0.0.0.0/0 123.124.0.0/16 # block all external requests for
1483 # sites on the ISP's network
1485 <emphasis>permit 0.0.0.0/0 www.my_isp.com</emphasis> # except for the ISP's main
1488 <emphasis>permit 123.124.0.0/16 0.0.0.0/0</emphasis> # the ISP's clients can go
1496 Note that if some hostnames are listed with multiple IP addresses,
1497 the primary value returned by DNS (via gethostbyname()) is used. Default:
1498 Anyone can access the proxy.
1503 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1506 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1508 <sect3 id="forwarding">
1509 <title>Forwarding</title>
1512 This feature allows chaining of HTTP requests via multiple proxies.
1513 It can be used to better protect privacy and confidentiality when
1514 accessing specific domains by routing requests to those domains
1515 to a special purpose filtering proxy such as lpwa.com. Or to use
1516 a caching proxy to speed up browsing.
1520 It can also be used in an environment with multiple networks to route
1521 requests via multiple gateways allowing transparent access to multiple
1522 networks without having to modify browser configurations.
1526 Also specified here are SOCKS proxies. <application>Privoxy</application>
1527 SOCKS 4 and SOCKS 4A. The difference is that SOCKS 4A will resolve the target
1528 hostname using DNS on the SOCKS server, not our local DNS client.
1532 The syntax of each line is:
1539 <emphasis>forward target_domain[:port] http_proxy_host[:port]</emphasis>
1540 <emphasis>forward-socks4 target_domain[:port] socks_proxy_host[:port] http_proxy_host[:port]</emphasis>
1541 <emphasis>forward-socks4a target_domain[:port] socks_proxy_host[:port] http_proxy_host[:port]</emphasis>
1548 If http_proxy_host is <quote>.</quote>, then requests are not forwarded to a
1549 HTTP proxy but are made directly to the web servers.
1553 Lines are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
1557 There is an implicit line equivalent to the following, which specifies that
1558 anything not finding a match on the list is to go out without forwarding
1559 or gateway protocol, like so:
1566 <emphasis>forward .* . </emphasis># implicit
1573 In the following common configuration, everything goes to Lucent's LPWA,
1574 except SSL on port 443 (which it doesn't handle):
1581 <emphasis>forward .* lpwa.com:8000</emphasis>
1582 <emphasis>forward :443 .</emphasis>
1590 See the FAQ for instructions on how to automate the login procedure for LPWA.
1592 Some users have reported difficulties related to LPWA's use of
1593 <quote>.</quote> as the last element of the domain, and have said that this
1594 can be fixed with this:
1601 <emphasis>forward lpwa. lpwa.com:8000</emphasis>
1608 (NOTE: the syntax for specifying target_domain has changed since the
1609 previous paragraph was written -- it will not work now. More information
1614 In this fictitious example, everything goes via an ISP's caching proxy,
1615 except requests to that ISP:
1622 <emphasis>forward .* caching.myisp.net:8000</emphasis>
1623 <emphasis>forward myisp.net .</emphasis>
1630 For the @home network, we're told the forwarding configuration is this:
1638 <emphasis>forward .* proxy:8080</emphasis>
1645 Also, we're told they insist on getting cookies and JavaScript, so you should
1646 allow cookies from home.com. We consider JavaScript a potential security risk.
1647 Java need not be enabled.
1651 In this example direct connections are made to all <quote>internal</quote>
1652 domains, but everything else goes through Lucent's LPWA by way of the
1653 company's SOCKS gateway to the Internet.
1660 <emphasis>forward-socks4 .* lpwa.com:8000 firewall.my_company.com:1080</emphasis>
1661 <emphasis>forward my_company.com .</emphasis>
1668 This is how you could set up a site that always uses SOCKS but no forwarders:
1675 <emphasis>forward-socks4a .* . firewall.my_company.com:1080</emphasis>
1682 An advanced example for network administrators:
1686 If you have links to multiple ISPs that provide various special content to
1687 their subscribers, you can configure forwarding to pass requests to the
1688 specific host that's connected to that ISP so that everybody can see all
1689 of the content on all of the ISPs.
1693 This is a bit tricky, but here's an example:
1698 host-a has a PPP connection to isp-a.com. And host-b has a PPP connection to
1699 isp-b.com. host-a can run a <application>Privoxy</application> proxy with
1700 forwarding like this:
1707 <emphasis>forward .* .</emphasis>
1708 <emphasis>forward isp-b.com host-b:8118</emphasis>
1715 host-b can run a <application>Privoxy</application> proxy with forwarding
1723 <emphasis>forward .* .</emphasis>
1724 <emphasis>forward isp-a.com host-a:8118</emphasis>
1731 Now, <emphasis>anyone</emphasis> on the Internet (including users on host-a
1732 and host-b) can set their browser's proxy to <emphasis>either</emphasis>
1733 host-a or host-b and be able to browse the content on isp-a or isp-b.
1737 Here's another practical example, for University of Kent at
1738 Canterbury students with a network connection in their room, who
1739 need to use the University's Squid web cache.
1746 <emphasis>forward *. ssbcache.ukc.ac.uk:3128</emphasis> # Use the proxy, except for:
1747 <emphasis>forward .ukc.ac.uk . </emphasis> # Anything on the same domain as us
1748 <emphasis>forward * . </emphasis> # Host with no domain specified
1749 <emphasis>forward 129.12.*.* . </emphasis> # A dotted IP on our /16 network.
1750 <emphasis>forward 127.*.*.* . </emphasis> # Loopback address
1751 <emphasis>forward localhost.localdomain . </emphasis> # Loopback address
1752 <emphasis>forward www.ukc.mirror.ac.uk . </emphasis> # Specific host
1759 If you intend to chain <application>Privoxy</application> and
1760 <application>squid</application> locally, then chain as
1761 <literal>browser -> squid -> privoxy</literal> is the recommended way.
1765 Your squid configuration could then look like this (assuming that the IP
1766 address of the box is <literal>192.168.0.1</literal> ):
1773 # Define Privoxy as parent cache
1774 <!-- per feedback from user...
1775 cache_peer 127.0.0.1 8118 parent 0 no-query
1777 cache_peer 192.168.0.1 parent 8118 0 no-query
1779 # don't listen to the whole world
1780 http_port 192.168.0.1:3128
1782 # define the local lan
1783 acl mylocallan src 192.168.0.1-192.168.0.5/255.255.255.255
1785 # grant access for http to local lan
1786 http_access allow mylocallan
1788 # Define ACL for protocol FTP
1791 # Do not forward ACL FTP to privoxy
1792 always_direct allow FTP
1794 # Do not forward ACL CONNECT (https) to privoxy
1795 always_direct allow CONNECT
1797 # Forward the rest to privoxy
1798 never_direct allow all
1806 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1809 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1812 <title>Windows GUI Options</title>
1814 Removed references to Win32. HB 09/23/01
1817 <application>Privoxy</application> has a number of options specific to the
1818 Windows GUI interface:
1822 If <quote>activity-animation</quote> is set to 1, the
1823 <application>Privoxy</application> icon will animate when
1824 <quote>Privoxy</quote> is active. To turn off, set to 0.
1831 <emphasis>activity-animation 1</emphasis>
1838 If <quote>log-messages</quote> is set to 1,
1839 <application>Privoxy</application> will log messages to the console
1847 <emphasis>log-messages 1</emphasis>
1854 If <quote>log-buffer-size</quote> is set to 1, the size of the log buffer,
1855 i.e. the amount of memory used for the log messages displayed in the
1856 console window, will be limited to <quote>log-max-lines</quote> (see below).
1860 Warning: Setting this to 0 will result in the buffer to grow infinitely and
1861 eat up all your memory!
1868 <emphasis>log-buffer-size 1</emphasis>
1875 <application>log-max-lines</application> is the maximum number of lines held
1876 in the log buffer. See above.
1883 <emphasis>log-max-lines 200</emphasis>
1890 If <quote>log-highlight-messages</quote> is set to 1,
1891 <application>Privoxy</application> will highlight portions of the log
1892 messages with a bold-faced font:
1899 <emphasis>log-highlight-messages 1</emphasis>
1906 The font used in the console window:
1913 <emphasis>log-font-name Comic Sans MS</emphasis>
1920 Font size used in the console window:
1927 <emphasis>log-font-size 8</emphasis>
1934 <quote>show-on-task-bar</quote> controls whether or not
1935 <application>Privoxy</application> will appear as a button on the Task bar
1943 <emphasis>show-on-task-bar 0</emphasis>
1950 If <quote>close-button-minimizes</quote> is set to 1, the Windows close
1951 button will minimize <application>Privoxy</application> instead of closing
1952 the program (close with the exit option on the File menu).
1959 <emphasis>close-button-minimizes 1</emphasis>
1966 The <quote>hide-console</quote> option is specific to the MS-Win console
1967 version of <application>Privoxy</application>. If this option is used,
1968 <application>Privoxy</application> will disconnect from and hide the
1985 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1988 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1989 <sect2 id="actionsfile">
1990 <title>The Actions File</title>
1993 The <quote>default.action</quote> file (formerly
1994 <filename>actionsfile</filename> or <filename>ijb.action</filename>) is used
1995 to define what actions <application>Privoxy</application> takes, and thus
1996 determines how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content
1997 and transactions are handled. These can be accepted or rejected for all
1998 sites, or just those sites you choose. See below for a complete list of
2002 Anything you want can blocked, including ads, banners, or just some obnoxious
2003 URL that you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted or rejected, or
2004 accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not written to disk).
2005 Changes to <filename>default.action</filename> should be immediately visible
2006 to <application>Privoxy</application> without the need to restart.
2010 Note that some sites may misbehave, or possibly not work at all with some
2011 actions. This may require some tinkering with the rules to get the most
2012 mileage of <application>Privoxy's</application> features, and still be
2013 able to see and enjoy just what you want to. There is no general rule of
2014 thumb on these things. There just are too many variables, and sites are
2020 The easiest way to edit the <quote>actions</quote> file is with a browser by
2021 loading <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>, and then select
2022 <quote>Edit Actions List</quote>. A text editor can also be used.
2026 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
2027 compared to all patterns in this file. Every time it matches, the list of
2028 applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated. You can trace
2029 this process by visiting <ulink
2030 url="http://p.p/show-url-info">http://p.p/show-url-info</ulink>.
2035 There are four types of lines in this file: comments (begin with a
2036 <quote>#</quote> character), actions, aliases and patterns, all of which are
2037 explained below, as well as the configuration file syntax that
2038 <application>Privoxy</application> understands.
2043 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2045 <title>URL Domain and Path Syntax</title>
2047 Generally, a pattern has the form <domain>/<path>, where both the
2048 <domain> and <path> part are optional. If you only specify a
2049 domain part, the <quote>/</quote> can be left out:
2053 <emphasis>www.example.com</emphasis> - is a domain only pattern and will match any request to
2054 <quote>www.example.com</quote>.
2058 <emphasis>www.example.com/</emphasis> - means exactly the same.
2062 <emphasis>www.example.com/index.html</emphasis> - matches only the single
2063 document <quote>/index.html</quote> on <quote>www.example.com</quote>.
2067 <emphasis>/index.html</emphasis> - matches the document <quote>/index.html</quote>,
2068 regardless of the domain. So would match any page named <quote>index.html</quote>
2073 <emphasis>index.html</emphasis> - matches nothing, since it would be
2074 interpreted as a domain name and there is no top-level domain called
2075 <quote>.html</quote>.
2079 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
2080 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
2085 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis> - matches any domain or sub-domain that
2086 <emphasis>ENDS</emphasis> in <quote>.example.com</quote>.
2090 <emphasis>www.</emphasis> - matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
2095 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
2096 themselves. They work pretty similar to shell wild-cards: <quote>*</quote>
2097 stands for zero or more arbitrary characters, <quote>?</quote> stands for
2098 any single character. And you can define character classes in square
2099 brackets and they can be freely mixed:
2103 <emphasis>ad*.example.com</emphasis> - matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
2104 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>.
2108 <emphasis>*ad*.example.com</emphasis> - matches all of the above, and then some.
2112 <emphasis>.?pix.com</emphasis> - matches <quote>www.ipix.com</quote>,
2113 <quote>pictures.epix.com</quote>, <quote>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</quote>, etc.
2117 <emphasis>www[1-9a-ez].example.com</emphasis> - matches <quote>www1.example.com</quote>,
2118 <quote>www4.example.com</quote>, <quote>wwwd.example.com</quote>,
2119 <quote>wwwz.example.com</quote>, etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
2120 <quote>wwww.example.com</quote>.
2124 If <application>Privoxy</application> was compiled with
2125 <quote>pcre</quote> support (the default), Perl compatible regular expressions
2126 can be used. These are more flexible and powerful than other types
2127 of <quote>regular expressions</quote>. See the <filename>pcre/docs/</filename> directory or <quote>man
2128 perlre</quote> (also available on <ulink
2129 url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>)
2130 for details. A brief discussion of regular expressions is in the
2131 <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link>. For instance:
2135 <emphasis>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.jpe?g</emphasis> - would match a URL from any
2136 domain, with any path that includes <quote>advert</quote> followed
2137 immediately by one or more digits, then a <quote>.</quote> and ending in
2138 either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>. So we match
2139 <quote>example.com/ads/advert2.jpg</quote>, and
2140 <quote>www.example.com/ads/banners/advert39.jpeg</quote>, but not
2141 <quote>www.example.com/ads/banners/advert39.gif</quote> (no gifs in the
2146 Please note that matching in the path is case
2147 <emphasis>INSENSITIVE</emphasis> by default, but you can switch to case
2148 sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
2149 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch:
2153 <emphasis>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</emphasis> - will match only
2154 documents whose path starts with <quote>PaTtErN</quote> in
2155 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
2160 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2164 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2167 <title>Actions</title>
2169 Actions are enabled if preceded with a <quote>+</quote>, and disabled if
2170 preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. Actions are invoked by enclosing the
2171 action name in curly braces (e.g. {+some_action}), followed by a list of
2172 URLs to which the action applies. There are three classes of actions:
2180 Boolean (e.g. <quote>+/-block</quote>):
2186 <emphasis>{+name}</emphasis> # enable this action
2187 <emphasis>{-name}</emphasis> # disable this action
2197 parameterized (e.g. <quote>+/-hide-user-agent</quote>):
2203 <emphasis>{+name{param}}</emphasis> # enable action and set parameter to <quote>param</quote>
2204 <emphasis>{-name}</emphasis> # disable action
2213 Multi-value (e.g. <quote>{+/-add-header{Name: value}}</quote>, <quote>{+/-wafer{name=value}}</quote>):
2219 <emphasis>{+name{param}}</emphasis> # enable action and add parameter <quote>param</quote>
2220 <emphasis>{-name{param}}</emphasis> # remove the parameter <quote>param</quote>
2221 <emphasis>{-name}</emphasis> # disable this action totally
2232 If nothing is specified in this file, no <quote>actions</quote> are taken.
2233 So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
2234 normal, non-blocking, non-anonymizing proxy. You must specifically
2235 enable the privacy and blocking features you need (although the
2236 provided default <filename>default.action</filename> file will
2237 give a good starting point).
2241 Later defined actions always over-ride earlier ones. So exceptions
2242 to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file. For
2243 multi-valued actions, the actions are applied in the order they are
2248 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> <quote>actions</quote> are:
2256 Add the specified HTTP header, which is not checked for validity.
2257 You may specify this many times to specify many different headers:
2263 <emphasis>+add-header{Name: value}</emphasis>
2273 Block this URL totally. In a default installation, a <quote>blocked</quote>
2274 URL will result in bright red banner that says <quote>BLOCKED</quote>,
2275 with a reason why it is being blocked, and an option to see it anyway.
2276 The page displayed for this is the <quote>blocked</quote> template
2283 <emphasis>+block</emphasis>
2293 De-animate all animated GIF images, i.e. reduce them to their last frame.
2294 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
2295 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
2296 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last frame
2297 of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for most
2298 banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire last
2299 frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
2305 <emphasis>+deanimate-gifs{last}</emphasis>
2306 <emphasis>+deanimate-gifs{first}</emphasis>
2315 <quote>+downgrade</quote> will downgrade HTTP/1.1 client requests to
2316 HTTP/1.0 and downgrade the responses as well. Use this action for servers
2317 that use HTTP/1.1 protocol features that
2318 <application>Privoxy</application> doesn't handle well yet. HTTP/1.1
2319 is only partially implemented. Default is not to downgrade requests.
2325 <emphasis>+downgrade</emphasis>
2334 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
2335 will link to some script on their own server, giving the destination as a
2336 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs resulting
2337 from this scheme typically look like:
2338 http://some.place/some_script?http://some.where-else.
2341 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
2342 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
2343 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go to.
2344 Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your browser
2345 ask the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds the
2349 The <quote>+fast-redirects</quote> option enables interception of these
2350 types of requests by <application>Privoxy</application>, who will cut off
2351 all but the last valid URL in the request and send a local redirect back to
2352 your browser without contacting the intermediate site(s).
2358 <emphasis>+fast-redirects</emphasis>
2367 Apply the filters in the <literal>section_header</literal>
2368 section of the <filename>default.filter</filename> file to the site(s).
2369 <filename>default.filter</filename> sections are grouped according to like
2370 functionality. <application>Filters</application> can be used to
2371 re-write any of the raw page content. This is a potentially a
2372 very powerful feature!
2379 <emphasis>+filter{section_header}</emphasis>
2386 Filter sections that are pre-defined in the supplied
2387 <filename>default.filter</filename> include:
2393 <emphasis>html-annoyances</emphasis>: Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse.
2398 <emphasis>js-annoyances</emphasis>: Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
2403 <emphasis>no-poups</emphasis>: Kill all popups in JS and HTML
2408 <emphasis>frameset-borders</emphasis>: Give frames a border
2413 <emphasis>webbugs</emphasis>: Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)
2418 <emphasis>no-refresh</emphasis>: Automatic refresh sucks on auto-dialup lines
2423 <emphasis>fun</emphasis>: Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!
2428 <emphasis>nimda</emphasis>: Remove (virus) Nimda code.
2433 <emphasis>banners-by-size</emphasis>: Kill banners by size
2438 <emphasis>crude-parental</emphasis>: Kill all web pages that contain the words "sex" or "warez"
2447 Block any existing X-Forwarded-for header, and do not add a new one:
2453 <emphasis>+hide-forwarded</emphasis>
2462 If the browser sends a <quote>From:</quote> header containing your e-mail
2463 address, this either completely removes the header (<quote>block</quote>), or
2464 changes it to the specified e-mail address.
2470 <emphasis>+hide-from{block}</emphasis>
2471 <emphasis>+hide-from{spam@sittingduck.xqq}</emphasis>
2480 Don't send the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) header to the web site. You
2481 can block it, forge a URL to the same server as the request (which is
2482 preferred because some sites will not send images otherwise) or set it to a
2483 constant, user defined string of your choice.
2489 <emphasis>+hide-referer{block}</emphasis>
2490 <emphasis>+hide-referer{forge}</emphasis>
2491 <emphasis>+hide-referer{http://nowhere.com}</emphasis>
2500 Alternative spelling of <quote>+hide-referer</quote>. It has the same
2501 parameters, and can be freely mixed with, <quote>+hide-referer</quote>.
2502 (<quote>referrer</quote> is the correct English spelling, however the HTTP
2503 specification has a bug - it requires it to be spelled <quote>referer</quote>.)
2509 <emphasis>+hide-referrer{...}</emphasis>
2518 Change the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> header so web servers can't tell your
2519 browser type. Warning! This breaks many web sites. Specify the
2520 user-agent value you want. Example, pretend to be using Netscape on
2527 <emphasis>+hide-user-agent{Mozilla (X11; I; Linux 2.0.32 i586)}</emphasis>
2534 Or to identify yourself explicitly as a <application>Privoxy</application> user:
2540 <emphasis>+hide-user-agent{Privoxy/1.0}</emphasis>
2545 (Don't change the version number from 1.0 - after all, why tell them?)
2552 <emphasis>+hide-user-agent{browser-type}</emphasis>
2562 Treat this URL as an image. This only matters if it's also <quote>+block</quote>ed,
2563 in which case a <quote>blocked</quote> image can be sent rather than a HTML page.
2564 See <quote>+image-blocker{}</quote> below for the control over what is actually sent.
2565 If you want <emphasis>invisible</emphasis> ads, they should be defined as
2566 <emphasis>images</emphasis> and <emphasis>blocked</emphasis>. And also,
2567 <quote>image-blocker</quote> should be set to <quote>blank</quote>. Note you
2568 cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, frames
2569 require an HTML page to display. Forcing an <quote>image</quote> in this
2570 situation just will not work.
2576 <emphasis>+image</emphasis>
2584 <para> Decides what to do with URLs that end up tagged with <quote>{+block
2585 +image}</quote>, e.g an advertizement. There are five options.
2586 <quote>-image-blocker</quote> will send a HTML <quote>blocked</quote> page,
2587 usually resulting in a <quote>broken image</quote> icon.
2588 <!-- <quote>+image-blocker{logo}</quote> will send a -->
2589 <!-- <application>Privoxy</application> logo -->
2591 <quote>+image-blocker{blank}</quote> will send a 1x1 transparent GIF
2592 image. And finally, <quote>+image-blocker{http://xyz.com}</quote> will send a
2593 HTTP temporary redirect to the specified image. This has the advantage of the
2594 icon being being cached by the browser, which will speed up the display.
2595 <quote>+image-blocker{pattern}</quote> will send a checkboard type pattern
2597 <!-- which scales better than the logo (which can get blocky if the browser -->
2598 <!-- enlarges it too much). -->
2604 <!-- <emphasis>+image-blocker{logo}</emphasis> -->
2605 <emphasis>+image-blocker{blank}</emphasis>
2606 <emphasis>+image-blocker{pattern}</emphasis>
2607 <emphasis>+image-blocker{http://p.p/send-banner}</emphasis>
2616 By default (i.e. in the absence of a <quote>+limit-connect</quote>
2617 action), <application>Privoxy</application> will only allow CONNECT
2618 requests to port 443, which is the standard port for https as a
2623 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
2624 (https:// URLs) through proxies. It works very simply: the proxy
2625 connects to the server on the specified port, and then short-circuits
2626 its connections to the client <emphasis>and</emphasis> to the remote proxy.
2627 This can be a big security hole, since CONNECT-enabled proxies can
2628 be abused as TCP relays very easily.
2632 If you want to allow CONNECT for more ports than this, or want to forbid
2633 CONNECT altogether, you can specify a comma separated list of ports and
2634 port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum defaulting to 0 and
2642 <emphasis>+limit-connect{443} # This is the default and need no be specified.</emphasis>
2643 <emphasis>+limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.</emphasis>
2644 <emphasis>+limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Port less than 3, 7, 20 to 100</emphasis>
2645 <emphasis> #and above 500 are OK.</emphasis>
2655 <quote>+no-compression</quote> prevents the website from compressing the
2656 data. Some websites do this, which can be a problem for
2657 <application>Privoxy</application>, since <quote>+filter</quote>,
2658 <quote>+no-popup</quote> and <quote>+gif-deanimate</quote> will not work on
2659 compressed data. This will slow down connections to those websites,
2660 though. Default is <quote>no-compression</quote> is turned on.
2667 <emphasis>+nocompression</emphasis>
2676 If the website sets cookies, <quote>no-cookies-keep</quote> will make sure
2677 they are erased when you exit and restart your web browser. This makes
2678 profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
2679 that you can log in for transactions. Default: on.
2685 <emphasis>+no-cookies-keep</emphasis>
2694 Prevent the website from reading cookies:
2700 <emphasis>+no-cookies-read</emphasis>
2709 Prevent the website from setting cookies:
2715 <emphasis>+no-cookies-set</emphasis>
2724 Filter the website through a built-in filter to disable those obnoxious
2725 JavaScript pop-up windows via window.open(), etc. The two alternative
2726 spellings are equivalent.
2732 <emphasis>+no-popup</emphasis>
2733 <emphasis>+no-popups</emphasis>
2742 This action only applies if you are using a <filename>jarfile</filename>
2743 for saving cookies. It sends a cookie to every site stating that you do not
2744 accept any copyright on cookies sent to you, and asking them not to track
2745 you. Of course, this is a (relatively) unique header they could use to
2752 <emphasis>+vanilla-wafer</emphasis>
2761 This allows you to add an arbitrary cookie. It can be specified multiple
2762 times in order to add as many cookies as you like.
2768 <emphasis>+wafer{name=value}</emphasis>
2779 The meaning of any of the above is reversed by preceding the action with a
2780 <quote>-</quote>, in place of the <quote>+</quote>.
2788 Turn off cookies by default, then allow a few through for specified sites:
2795 # Turn off all persistent cookies
2796 { +no-cookies-read }
2798 # Allow cookies for this browser session ONLY
2799 { +no-cookies-keep }
2801 # Exceptions to the above, sites that benefit from persistent cookies
2802 { -no-cookies-read }
2804 { -no-cookies-keep }
2811 # Alternative way of saying the same thing
2812 {-no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-keep}
2821 Now turn off <quote>fast redirects</quote>, and then we allow two exceptions:
2831 # Reverse it for these two sites, which don't work right without it.
2833 www.ukc.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wac\.cgi\?
2841 Turn on page filtering according to rules in the defined sections
2842 of <filename>refilterfile</filename>, and make one exception for
2850 # Run everything through the filter file, using only the
2851 # specified sections:
2852 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}\
2853 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size}
2855 # Then disable filtering of code from sourceforge!
2857 .cvs.sourceforge.net
2864 Now some URLs that we want <quote>blocked</quote> (normally generates
2865 the <quote>blocked</quote> banner). Many of these use regular expressions
2866 that will expand to match multiple URLs:
2875 /.*/(.*[-_.])?ads?[0-9]?(/|[-_.].*|\.(gif|jpe?g))
2876 /.*/(.*[-_.])?count(er)?(\.cgi|\.dll|\.exe|[?/])
2877 /.*/(ng)?adclient\.cgi
2878 /.*/(plain|live|rotate)[-_.]?ads?/
2879 /.*/(sponsor)s?[0-9]?/
2880 /.*/_?(plain|live)?ads?(-banners)?/
2882 /.*/ad(sdna_image|gifs?)/
2883 /.*/ad(server|stream|juggler)\.(cgi|pl|dll|exe)
2887 /.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/
2891 /.*/cgi-bin/centralad/getimage
2892 /.*/images/addver\.gif
2893 /.*/images/marketing/.*\.(gif|jpe?g)
2897 /.*/sponsors?[0-9]?/
2898 /.*/advert[0-9]+\.jpg
2905 /graphics/defaultAd/
2907 /image\.ng/transactionID
2908 /images/.*/.*_anim\.gif # alvin brattli
2909 /ip_img/.*\.(gif|jpe?g)
2913 /cgi-bin/nph-adclick.exe/
2914 /.*/Image/BannerAdvertising/
2916 /.*/adlib/server\.cgi
2924 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
2925 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
2926 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
2927 content he may depend on. There is no way to have hard and fast rules
2928 for all sites. See the <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link>
2929 for a brief example on troubleshooting actions.
2935 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2938 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2940 <title>Aliases</title>
2942 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
2943 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other <quote>actions</quote>.
2944 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in <quote>actions</quote>.
2945 Currently, an alias can contain any character except space, tab, <quote>=</quote>,
2946 <quote>{</quote> or <quote>}</quote>. But please use only <quote>a</quote>-
2947 <quote>z</quote>, <quote>0</quote>-<quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and
2948 <quote>-</quote>. Alias names are not case sensitive, and
2949 <emphasis>must be defined before anything</emphasis> else in the
2950 <filename>default.action</filename>file! And there can only be one set of
2951 <quote>aliases</quote> defined.
2955 Now let's define a few aliases:
2962 # Useful customer aliases we can use later. These must come first!
2964 +no-cookies = +no-cookies-set +no-cookies-read
2965 -no-cookies = -no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read
2966 fragile = -block -no-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -no-popups
2967 shop = -no-cookies -filter -fast-redirects
2968 +imageblock = +block +image
2970 #For people who don't like to type too much: ;-)
2973 c2 = -no-cookies-set +no-cookies-read
2974 c3 = +no-cookies-set -no-cookies-read
2975 #... etc. Customize to your heart's content.
2982 Some examples using our <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote>
2990 # These sites are very complex and require
2991 # minimal interference.
2993 .office.microsoft.com
2994 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
2997 # Shopping sites - still want to block ads.
3000 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
3004 # These shops require pop-ups
3014 The <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> aliases are often used for
3015 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require most actions to be disabled
3016 in order to function properly.
3023 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3026 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3027 <sect2 id="filterfile">
3028 <title>The Filter File</title>
3030 Any web page can be dynamically modified with the filter file. This
3031 modification can be removal, or re-writing, of any web page content,
3032 including tags and non-visible content. The default filter file is
3033 <filename>default.filter</filename>, located in the config directory.
3037 This is potentially a very powerful feature, and requires knowledge of both
3038 <quote>regular expression</quote> and HTML in order create custom
3039 filters. But, there are a number of useful filters included with
3040 <application>Privoxy</application> for many common situations.
3044 The included example file is divided into sections. Each section begins
3045 with the <literal>FILTER</literal> keyword, followed by the identifier
3046 for that section, e.g. <quote>FILTER: webbugs</quote>. Each section performs
3047 a similar type of filtering, such as <quote>html-annoyances</quote>.
3051 This file uses regular expressions to alter or remove any string in the
3052 target page. The expressions can only operate on one line at a time. Some
3053 examples from the included default <filename>default.filter</filename>:
3057 Stop web pages from displaying annoying messages in the status bar by
3058 deleting such references:
3065 FILTER: html-annoyances
3067 # New browser windows should be resizeable and have a location and status
3070 s/resizable="?(no|0)"?/resizable=1/ig s/noresize/yesresize/ig
3071 s/location="?(no|0)"?/location=1/ig s/status="?(no|0)"?/status=1/ig
3072 s/scrolling="?(no|0|Auto)"?/scrolling=1/ig
3073 s/menubar="?(no|0)"?/menubar=1/ig
3075 # The <BLINK> tag was a crime!
3077 s*<blink>|</blink>**ig
3081 #s/framespacing="?(no|0)"?//ig
3082 #s/margin(height|width)=[0-9]*//gi
3089 Just for kicks, replace any occurrence of <quote>Microsoft</quote> with
3090 <quote>MicroSuck</quote>, and have a little fun with topical buzzwords:
3099 s/microsoft(?!.com)/MicroSuck/ig
3103 s/industry-leading|cutting-edge|award-winning/<font color=red><b>BINGO!</b></font>/ig
3110 Kill those pesky little web-bugs:
3117 # webbugs: Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)
3120 s/<img\s+[^>]*?(width|height)\s*=\s*['"]?1\D[^>]*?(width|height)\s*=\s*['"]?1(\D[^>]*?)?>/<!-- Squished WebBug -->/sig
3128 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3132 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3135 <title>Templates</title>
3137 When <application>Privoxy</application> displays one of its internal
3138 pages, such as a 404 Not Found error page, it uses the appropriate template.
3139 On Linux, BSD, and Unix, these are located in
3140 <filename>/etc/privoxy/templates</filename> by default. These may be
3141 customized, if desired.
3144 The default <quote>Blocked</quote> banner page with the bright red top
3145 banner, is called just <quote><filename>blocked</filename></quote>. This
3146 may be customized or replaced with something else if desired.
3153 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3157 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3159 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
3162 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
3166 <!-- end boilerplate -->
3171 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3172 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Copyright and History</title>
3174 <sect2><title>Copyright</title>
3175 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
3177 <!-- end copyright -->
3180 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3183 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3185 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
3186 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
3188 <!-- end history -->
3192 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3193 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
3194 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
3196 <!-- end seealso -->
3201 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3202 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
3205 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3207 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
3209 <application>Privoxy</application> can use <quote>regular expressions</quote>
3210 in various config files. Assuming support for <quote>pcre</quote> (Perl
3211 Compatible Regular Expressions) is compiled in, which is the default. Such
3212 configuration directives do not require regular expressions, but they can be
3213 used to increase flexibility by matching a pattern with wild-cards against
3218 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
3219 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
3220 introduction only. A full explanation would require a book ;-)
3224 <quote>Regular expressions</quote> is a way of matching one character
3225 expression against another to see if it matches or not. One of the
3226 <quote>expressions</quote> is a literal string of readable characters
3227 (letter, numbers, etc), and the other is a complex string of literal
3228 characters combined with wild-cards, and other special characters, called
3229 meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have special meanings and
3230 are used to build the complex pattern to be matched against. Perl Compatible
3231 Regular Expressions is an enhanced form of the regular expression language
3232 with backward compatibility.
3236 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
3237 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
3238 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
3239 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
3240 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
3241 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
3242 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
3243 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
3247 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
3248 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
3249 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
3250 and then some examples:
3255 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
3256 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
3262 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
3269 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
3276 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
3283 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
3284 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
3285 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
3286 not as a special meta-character.
3292 <emphasis>[]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
3293 any of the enclosed characters are encountered.
3299 <emphasis>()</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
3300 or multiple sub-expressions.
3306 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
3307 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
3308 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches.
3314 <emphasis>s/string1/string2/g</emphasis> - This is used to rewrite strings of text.
3315 <quote>string1</quote> is replaced by <quote>string2</quote> in this
3321 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
3322 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
3323 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
3324 be more illuminating:
3328 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
3329 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
3330 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
3331 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
3332 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
3333 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
3334 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
3335 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
3336 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
3337 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
3338 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
3339 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
3340 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
3341 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
3346 A now something a little more complex:
3350 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
3351 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
3352 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
3353 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
3354 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
3355 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
3356 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
3361 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
3362 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
3363 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
3364 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
3365 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
3366 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
3367 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
3368 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
3369 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
3370 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
3371 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
3372 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
3373 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
3374 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
3375 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
3376 changing our regular expression to:
3377 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
3382 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
3383 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
3384 <quote>[]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
3385 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
3386 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
3387 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
3388 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
3389 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
3390 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
3391 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
3392 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
3393 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
3394 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
3395 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
3396 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
3397 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
3398 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
3399 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
3400 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
3401 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
3402 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
3403 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
3404 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
3405 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
3406 in the expression anywhere).
3410 <emphasis><literal>s/microsoft(?!.com)/MicroSuck/i</literal></emphasis> - This is
3411 a substitution. <quote>MicroSuck</quote> will replace any occurrence of
3412 <quote>microsoft</quote>. The <quote>i</quote> at the end of the expression
3413 means ignore case. The <quote>(?!.com)</quote> means
3414 the match should fail if <quote>microsoft</quote> is followed by
3415 <quote>.com</quote>. In other words, this acts like a <quote>NOT</quote>
3416 modifier. In case this is a hyperlink, we don't want to break it ;-).
3420 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
3421 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
3422 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
3423 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
3424 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
3429 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
3430 <ulink url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>
3435 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3438 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3440 <title><application>Privoxy</application>'s Internal Pages</title>
3443 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
3444 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
3445 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
3446 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
3447 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
3448 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
3449 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
3455 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
3456 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
3457 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
3458 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
3471 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
3475 Alternately, this may be reached at <ulink
3476 url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>, but this
3477 variation may not work as reliably as the above in some configurations.
3483 Show information about the current configuration:
3487 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
3494 Show the source code version numbers:
3498 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
3505 Show the client's request headers:
3509 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
3516 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
3520 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
3527 Toggle Privoxy on or off. In this case, <quote>Privoxy</quote> continues
3528 to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking place:
3532 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
3536 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
3540 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
3545 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
3552 Edit the actions list file:
3556 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions">http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions</ulink>
3565 These may be bookmarked for quick reference.
3569 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
3570 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
3572 Here are some bookmarklets to allow you to easily access a
3573 <quote>mini</quote> version of this page. They are designed for MS Internet
3574 Explorer, but should work equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other
3575 browsers which support JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from
3576 your bookmarks - not by clicking the links below (although that will work for
3580 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
3581 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
3582 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
3583 Bookmarklet directly from your favourites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
3584 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
3585 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
3593 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=enabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Enable Privoxy</ulink>
3599 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=disabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Disable Privoxy</ulink>
3605 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=toggle','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Toggle Privoxy</ulink> (Toggles between enabled and disabled)
3611 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y','ijbstatus','width=250,height=2,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">View Privoxy Status</ulink>
3619 Credit: The site which gave me the general idea for these bookmarklets is
3620 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
3621 have more information about bookmarklets.
3630 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3631 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
3632 <title>Anatomy of an Action</title>
3635 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies <quote>actions</quote>
3636 and <quote>filters</quote> to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
3637 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
3638 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
3639 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
3640 is causing us a problem inadvertantly. It can be a little daunting to look at
3641 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
3642 <quote>regular expressions</quote> whose consequences are not always
3643 so obvious. <application>Privoxy</application> provides the
3644 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
3645 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
3646 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
3650 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
3651 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
3652 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
3653 help with filtering effects from the <filename>default.filter</filename> file! It
3654 also will not tell you about any other URLs that may be embedded within the
3655 URL you are testing. For instance, images such as ads are expressed as URLs
3656 within the raw page source of HTML pages. So you will only get info for the
3657 actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area -- not any sub-URLs. If you
3658 want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you will have to dig those out of
3659 the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View Page Source</quote> option
3664 Let's look at an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
3665 one section at a time:
3670 System default actions:
3672 { -add-header -block -deanimate-gifs -downgrade -fast-redirects -filter
3673 -hide-forwarded -hide-from -hide-referer -hide-user-agent -image
3674 -image-blocker -limit-connect -no-compression -no-cookies-keep
3675 -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set -no-popups -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
3681 This is the top section, and only tells us of the compiled in defaults. This
3682 is basically what <application>Privoxy</application> would do if there
3683 were not any <quote>actions</quote> defined, i.e. it does nothing. Every action
3684 is disabled. This is not particularly informative for our purposes here. OK,
3691 Matches for http://google.com:
3693 { -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs -downgrade +fast-redirects
3694 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
3695 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
3696 +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
3697 -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} +no-compression
3698 +no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups
3699 -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
3702 { -no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set }
3712 This is much more informative, and tells us how we have defined our
3713 <quote>actions</quote>, and which ones match for our example,
3714 <quote>google.com</quote>. The first grouping shows our default
3715 settings, which would apply to all URLs. If you look at your <quote>actions</quote>
3716 file, this would be the section just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section
3717 near the top. This applies to all URLs as signified by the single forward
3718 slash -- <quote>/</quote>.
3723 These are the default actions we have enabled. But we can define additional
3724 actions that would be exceptions to these general rules, and then list
3725 specific URLs that these exceptions would apply to. Last match wins.
3726 Just below this then are two explict matches for <quote>.google.com</quote>.
3727 The first is negating our various cookie blocking actions (i.e. we will allow
3728 cookies here). The second is allowing <quote>fast-redirects</quote>. Note
3729 that there is a leading dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will
3730 match any hosts and sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
3731 <quote>www.google.com</quote>. So, apparently, we have these actions defined
3732 somewhere in the lower part of our actions file, and
3733 <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced in these sections.
3738 And now we pull it altogether in the bottom section and summarize how
3739 <application>Privoxy</application> is appying all its <quote>actions</quote>
3740 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
3749 -add-header -block -deanimate-gifs -downgrade -fast-redirects
3750 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
3751 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
3752 +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
3753 -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} -limit-connect +no-compression
3754 -no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups -vanilla-wafer
3761 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
3780 We'll just show the interesting part here, the explicit matches. It is
3781 matched three different times. Each as an <quote>+block +image</quote>,
3782 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
3783 <quote>+imageblock</quote>. (<quote>Aliases</quote> are defined in the
3784 first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
3789 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
3790 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
3791 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
3792 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
3793 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
3794 is done here -- as both a <quote>+block</quote> <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
3795 <quote>+image</quote>. The custom alias <quote>+imageblock</quote> does this
3800 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
3801 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm...
3807 Matches for http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
3809 { -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs -downgrade +fast-redirects
3810 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{no-popups}
3811 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
3812 +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded +hide-from{block} +hide-referer{forge}
3813 -hide-user-agent -image +image-blocker{blank} +no-compression
3814 +no-cookies-keep -no-cookies-read -no-cookies-set +no-popups
3815 -vanilla-wafer -wafer }
3825 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote>! But
3826 we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the blank page. We could
3827 now add a new action below this that explictly does <emphasis>not</emphasis>
3828 block (-block) pages with <quote>adsl</quote>. There are various ways to
3829 handle such exceptions. Example:
3842 Now the page displays ;-) Be sure to flush your browser's caches when
3843 making such changes. Or, try using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
3848 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
3863 That actually was very telling and pointed us quickly to where the problem
3864 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
3865 rules in the first section is causing the problem. This would require some
3866 guesswork, and maybe a little trial and error to isolate the offending rule.
3867 One likely cause would be one of the <quote>{+filter}</quote> actions. Try
3868 adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off <quote>+filter</quote>:
3876 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
3885 <quote>{shop}</quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
3886 <quote>{ -filter -no-cookies -no-cookies-keep }</quote>. Or you could do
3887 your own exception to negate filtering:
3901 <quote>{fragile}</quote> is an alias that disables most actions. This can be
3902 used as a last resort for problem sites. Remember to flush caches! If this
3903 still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining actions one by
3904 one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
3913 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
3914 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
3915 Public License as published by the Free Software
3916 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
3917 your option) any later version.
3919 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
3920 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
3921 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
3922 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
3923 License for more details.
3925 The GNU General Public License should be included with
3926 this file. If not, you can view it at
3927 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
3928 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
3929 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
3931 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
3932 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
3933 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
3934 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
3935 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
3936 eventually be set by Makefile.
3937 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
3939 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
3940 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
3942 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
3943 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
3945 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
3946 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
3948 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
3949 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
3950 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
3951 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
3953 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
3956 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
3957 Added more to Anatomy section.
3959 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
3960 Touch up intro for new name.
3962 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
3963 we have a new homepage!
3965 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
3966 A few minor catch ups with name change.
3968 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
3969 configure needs to be generated.
3971 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
3972 we are too lazy to make a block-built
3973 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
3975 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
3976 name change related issue.
3978 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
3979 name change. changed filenames.
3981 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
3984 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
3985 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
3986 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
3987 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
3988 comments and remarks to history untouched.
3990 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
3993 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
3994 New section in Appendix.
3996 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
3997 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
3999 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
4000 correct feedback channels
4002 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
4003 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
4005 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
4008 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
4009 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
4011 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
4012 Added imageblock{pattern}.
4014 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
4017 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
4018 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
4020 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
4021 provide correct feedback channels
4023 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
4024 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
4026 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
4027 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
4029 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
4030 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
4032 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
4033 Add new - - user option.
4035 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
4036 Added section on command line options.
4038 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
4039 Changed default port to 8118
4041 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
4042 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
4044 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
4045 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
4046 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
4049 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
4052 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
4053 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
4055 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
4056 Update OS/2 build section
4058 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
4059 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
4060 will work - no other changes are needed.
4062 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
4063 Added a very short section on Templates
4065 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
4066 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
4068 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
4069 Touch ups for *.action files.
4071 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
4074 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
4075 Updates for recent changes.
4077 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
4078 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
4080 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
4081 Correct 2 minor errors
4083 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
4084 *** empty log message ***
4086 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
4087 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
4089 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
4090 wrong url in documentation
4092 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
4093 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
4095 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
4098 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
4101 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
4104 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
4105 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
4107 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
4108 Some additions, and re-arranging.
4110 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
4113 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
4114 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
4116 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
4119 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
4120 source files for junkbuster documentation
4122 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
4123 first proposal of a structure.
4125 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
4126 docs should have an author.
4128 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
4129 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.