Purpose : Used with other docs and files only.
- $Id: p-config.sgml,v 2.8 2006/09/06 02:17:53 hal9 Exp $
+ $Id: p-config.sgml,v 2.75 2011/07/08 13:31:40 fabiankeil Exp $
- Copyright (C) 2001-2006 Privoxy Developers <developers@privoxy.org>
+ Copyright (C) 2001-2010 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org/
See LICENSE.
========================================================================
<title>The Main Configuration File</title>
<para>
- Again, the main configuration file is named <filename>config</filename> on
- Linux/Unix/BSD and OS/2, and <filename>config.txt</filename> on Windows.
+ By default, the main configuration file is named <filename>config</filename>,
+ with the exception of Windows, where it is named <filename>config.txt</filename>.
Configuration lines consist of an initial keyword followed by a list of
values, all separated by whitespace (any number of spaces or tabs). For
example:
<para>
The main config file controls all aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>'s
operation that are not location dependent (i.e. they apply universally, no matter
- where you may be surfing).
+ where you may be surfing). Like the filter and action files, the config file is
+ a plain text file and can be modified with a text editor like emacs, vim or
+ notepad.exe.
</para>
]]>
Sample Configuration File for Privoxy v&p-version;
</title>
<para>
- $Id: p-config.sgml,v 2.8 2006/09/06 02:17:53 hal9 Exp $
+ $Id: p-config.sgml,v 2.75 2011/07/08 13:31:40 fabiankeil Exp $
</para>
<para>
-Copyright (C) 2001-2006 Privoxy Developers http://privoxy.org
+Copyright (C) 2001-2010 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org/
</para>
<para>
I. INTRODUCTION #
II. FORMAT OF THE CONFIGURATION FILE #
#
- 1. CONFIGURATION AND LOG FILE LOCATIONS #
- 2. LOCAL SET-UP DOCUMENTATION #
+ 1. LOCAL SET-UP DOCUMENTATION #
+ 2. CONFIGURATION AND LOG FILE LOCATIONS #
3. DEBUGGING #
4. ACCESS CONTROL AND SECURITY #
5. FORWARDING #
=============== <!-- fuck this madness --></literallayout>
<para>
- This file holds the Privoxy configuration. If you modify this
- file, you will need to send a couple of requests (of any kind) to the proxy
- before any changes take effect.
+ This file holds Privoxy's main configuration. Privoxy detects
+ configuration changes automatically, so you don't have to restart it
+ unless you want to load a different configuration file.
</para>
<para>
- When starting Privoxy on Unix systems, give the name of this
- file as an argument. On Windows systems, Privoxy will look for
- this file with the name 'config.txt' in the same directory where
- Privoxy is installed.
+ The configuration will be reloaded with the first request after the
+ change was done, this request itself will still use the old configuration,
+ though. In other words: it takes two requests before you see the result of
+ your changes. Requests that are dropped due to ACL don't trigger reloads.
+</para>
+<para>
+ When starting Privoxy on Unix systems, give the location of this
+ file as last argument. On Windows systems, Privoxy will look for
+ this file with the name 'config.txt' in the current working directory
+ of the Privoxy process.
</para>
<para>
<para>
Thus, by placing a # at the start of an existing configuration line,
you can make it a comment and it will be treated as if it weren't there.
- This is called "commenting out" an option and can be useful.
+ This is called "commenting out" an option and can be useful. Removing
+ the # again is called "uncommenting".
</para>
<para>
- Note that commenting out and option and leaving it at its default
+ Note that commenting out an option and leaving it at its default
are two completely different things! Most options behave very
- differently when unset. See the the "Effect if unset" explanation
+ differently when unset. See the "Effect if unset" explanation
in each option's description for details.
</para>
<para>
<!-- The following is common to both outputs (mostly) -->
<!-- ************************************************ -->
-<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect2 id="conf-log-loc">
-<title>Configuration and Log File Locations</title>
-<para>
- <application>Privoxy</application> can (and normally does) use a number of
- other files for additional configuration, help and logging.
- This section of the configuration file tells <application>Privoxy</application>
- where to find those other files.
-</para>
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect2 id="local-set-up">
+<title>Local Set-up Documentation</title>
-<para>
- The user running <application>Privoxy</application>, must have read
- permission for all configuration files, and write permission to any files
- that would be modified, such as log files and actions files.
-</para>
+ If you intend to operate <application>Privoxy</application> for more users
+ than just yourself, it might be a good idea to let them know how to reach
+ you, what you block and why you do that, your policies, etc.
+ </para>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="confdir"><title>confdir</title>
-
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="user-manual"><title>user-manual</title>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Specifies:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>The directory where the other configuration files are located</para>
+ <para>
+ Location of the <application>Privoxy</application> User Manual.
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Type of value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>Path name</para>
+ <para>A fully qualified URI</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Default value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>/etc/privoxy (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> <application>Privoxy</application> installation dir (Windows) </para>
+ <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Effect if unset:</term>
<listitem>
- <para><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
+ <para>
+ <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/<replaceable class="parameter">version</replaceable>/user-manual/</ulink>
+ will be used, where <replaceable class="parameter">version</replaceable> is the <application>Privoxy</application> version.
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
+ <para>
+ The User Manual URI is the single best source of information on
+ <application>Privoxy</application>, and is used for help links from some
+ of the internal CGI pages. The manual itself is normally packaged with the
+ binary distributions, so you probably want to set this to a locally
+ installed copy.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Examples:
+ </para>
+ <!--
+ <para>
+ Unix, in local filesystem (may not work with all browsers):
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <screen> user-manual file:///usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;/user-manual/</screen>
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Windows, in local filesystem, <emphasis>must</emphasis> use forward slash notation:
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <screen> user-manual file:/c:/some-dir/privoxy-&p-version;/user-manual/</screen>
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Windows, UNC notation (with forward slashes):
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <screen> user-manual file://///some-server/some-path/privoxy-&p-version;/user-manual/</screen>
+ </para>
+ -->
+ <para>
+ The best all purpose solution is simply to put the full local
+ <literal>PATH</literal> to where the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> is
+ located:
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <screen> user-manual /usr/share/doc/privoxy/user-manual</screen>
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ The User Manual is then available to anyone with access to
+ <application>Privoxy</application>, by following the built-in URL:
+ <literal>http://config.privoxy.org/user-manual/</literal>
+ (or the shortcut: <literal>http://p.p/user-manual/</literal>).
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If the documentation is not on the local system, it can be accessed
+ from a remote server, as:
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <screen> user-manual http://example.com/privoxy/user-manual/</screen>
+ </para>
+ <![%user-man;[
+ <!-- this gets hammered in conversion to config. Text repeated below. -->
+ <warning>
<para>
- No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please
+ If set, this option should be <emphasis>the first option in the config
+ file</emphasis>, because it is used while the config file is being read
+ on start-up.
</para>
+ </warning>
+ ]]>
+
+ <![%config-file;[
+ <!-- alternate -->
<para>
- When development goes modular and multi-user, the blocker, filter, and
- per-user config will be stored in subdirectories of <quote>confdir</quote>.
- For now, the configuration directory structure is flat, except for
- <filename>confdir/templates</filename>, where the HTML templates for CGI
- output reside (e.g. <application>Privoxy's</application> 404 error page).
+ WARNING!!!
</para>
- </listitem>
+ <blockquote>
+ <para>
+ If set, this option should be the first option in the config
+ file, because it is used while the config file is being read.
+ </para>
+ </blockquote>
+ ]]>
+
+ </listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@confdir .</literallayout>]]>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#user-manual http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</literallayout>]]>
</sect3>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="logdir"><title>logdir</title>
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="trust-info-url"><title>trust-info-url</title>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Specifies:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- The directory where all logging takes place (i.e. where <filename>logfile</filename> and
- <filename>jarfile</filename> are located)
+ A URL to be displayed in the error page that users will see if access to an untrusted page is denied.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Type of value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>Path name</para>
+ <para>URL</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Default value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>/var/log/privoxy (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> <application>Privoxy</application> installation dir (Windows) </para>
+ <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Effect if unset:</term>
<listitem>
- <para><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
+ <para>
+ No links are displayed on the "untrusted" error page.
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please
+ The value of this option only matters if the experimental trust mechanism has been
+ activated. (See <link linkend="trustfile"><emphasis>trustfile</emphasis></link> below.)
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If you use the trust mechanism, it is a good idea to write up some on-line
+ documentation about your trust policy and to specify the URL(s) here.
+ Use multiple times for multiple URLs.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ The URL(s) should be added to the trustfile as well, so users don't end up
+ locked out from the information on why they were locked out in the first place!
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@logdir .</literallayout>]]>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#trust-info-url http://www.example.com/why_we_block.html</literallayout>]]>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#trust-info-url http://www.example.com/what_we_allow.html</literallayout>]]>
</sect3>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="actionsfile"><title>
-actionsfile
-</title>
-<anchor id="default.action">
-<anchor id="standard.action">
-<anchor id="user.action">
-<!-- Note: slightly modified this section 04/28/02, hal. See NOTE. -->
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="admin-address"><title>admin-address</title>
+
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Specifies:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- The <link linkend="actions-file">actions file(s)</link> to use
+ An email address to reach the <application>Privoxy</application> administrator.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Type of value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal>, without the <literal>.action</literal> suffix</para>
+ <para>Email address</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term>Default values:</term>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
<listitem>
- <simplelist>
- <member>
- <msgtext><literallayout> standard # Internal purposes, no editing recommended</literallayout></msgtext>
- </member>
- <member>
- <msgtext><literallayout> default # Main actions file</literallayout></msgtext>
- </member>
- <member>
- <msgtext><literallayout> user # User customizations</literallayout></msgtext>
- </member>
- </simplelist>
+ <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Effect if unset:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- No actions are taken at all. Simple neutral proxying.
+ No email address is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Multiple <literal>actionsfile</literal> lines are permitted, and are in fact recommended!
- </para>
- <para>
- The default values include standard.action, which is used for internal
- purposes and should be loaded, default.action, which is the
- <quote>main</quote> actions file maintained by the developers, and
- <filename>user.action</filename>, where you can make your personal additions.
- </para>
- <para>
- Actions files are where all the per site and per URL configuration is done for
- ad blocking, cookie management, privacy considerations, etc.
- There is no point in using <application>Privoxy</application> without at
- least one actions file.
- </para>
+ If both <literal>admin-address</literal> and <literal>proxy-info-url</literal>
+ are unset, the whole "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will
+ not be shown.
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
-<!-- NOTE: alternate markup to make a simpler list doesn't work due to -->
-<!-- html -> text conversion, blah -->
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@actionsfile standard # Internal purpose, recommended</literallayout>]]>
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@actionsfile default # Main actions file</literallayout>]]>
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@actionsfile user # User customizations</literallayout>]]>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#admin-address privoxy-admin@example.com</literallayout>]]>
</sect3>
+
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filterfile"><title>filterfile</title>
-<anchor id="default.filter">
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="proxy-info-url"><title>proxy-info-url</title>
+
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Specifies:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- The <link linkend="filter-file">filter file(s)</link> to use
+ A URL to documentation about the local <application>Privoxy</application> setup,
+ configuration or policies.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Type of value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
+ <para>URL</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Default value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>default.filter (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> default.filter.txt (Windows)</para>
+ <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Effect if unset:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- No textual content filtering takes place, i.e. all
- <literal>+<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>}</literal>
- actions in the actions files are turned neutral.
+ No link to local documentation is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Multiple <literal>filterfile</literal> lines are permitted.
- </para>
- <para>
- The <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link> contain content modification
- rules that use <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link>. These rules permit
- powerful changes on the content of Web pages, and optionally the headers
- as well, e.g., you could disable your favorite JavaScript annoyances,
- re-write the actual displayed text, or just have some fun
- playing buzzword bingo with web pages.
- </para>
- <para>
- The
- <literal>+<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>}</literal>
- actions rely on the relevant filter (<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>)
- to be defined in a filter file!
- </para>
- <para>
- A pre-defined filter file called <filename>default.filter</filename> that contains
- a number of useful filters for common problems is included in the distribution.
- See the section on the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
- action for a list.
- </para>
+ If both <literal>admin-address</literal> and <literal>proxy-info-url</literal>
+ are unset, the whole "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will
+ not be shown.
+ </para>
<para>
- It is recommended to place any locally adapted filters into a separate
- file, such as <filename>user.filter</filename>.
- </para>
+ This URL shouldn't be blocked ;-)
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@filterfile default.filter</literallayout>]]>
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#filterfile user.filter # User customizations</literallayout>]]>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#proxy-info-url http://www.example.com/proxy-service.html</literallayout>]]>
</sect3>
+</sect2>
+<!-- ~ End section ~ -->
+
+
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="logfile"><title>logfile</title>
+
+<sect2 id="conf-log-loc">
+<title>Configuration and Log File Locations</title>
+
+<para>
+ <application>Privoxy</application> can (and normally does) use a number of
+ other files for additional configuration, help and logging.
+ This section of the configuration file tells <application>Privoxy</application>
+ where to find those other files.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ The user running <application>Privoxy</application>, must have read
+ permission for all configuration files, and write permission to any files
+ that would be modified, such as log files and actions files.
+</para>
+
+
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="confdir"><title>confdir</title>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Specifies:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>
- The log file to use
- </para>
+ <para>The directory where the other configuration files are located.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Type of value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>File name, relative to <literal>logdir</literal></para>
+ <para>Path name</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Default value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>logfile (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> privoxy.log (Windows)</para>
+ <para>/etc/privoxy (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> <application>Privoxy</application> installation dir (Windows) </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Effect if unset:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>
- No log file is used, all log messages go to the console (<literal>STDERR</literal>).
- </para>
+ <para><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
- <!--
- removed per bug report 688728 02/20/03 HB
-
<para>
- The windows version will additionally log to the console.
+ No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please.
</para>
- -->
+ <!--
+ This is really outdated and not likely to happen. HB 09/20/06
<para>
- The logfile is where all logging and error messages are written. The level
- of detail and number of messages are set with the <literal>debug</literal>
- option (see below). The logfile can be useful for tracking down a problem with
- <application>Privoxy</application> (e.g., it's not blocking an ad you
- think it should block) but in most cases you probably will never look at it.
- </para>
- <para>
- Your logfile will grow indefinitely, and you will probably want to
- periodically remove it. On Unix systems, you can do this with a cron job
- (see <quote>man cron</quote>). For Red Hat, a <command>logrotate</command>
- script has been included.
- </para>
- <para>
- On SuSE Linux systems, you can place a line like <quote>/var/log/privoxy.*
- +1024k 644 nobody.nogroup</quote> in <filename>/etc/logfiles</filename>, with
- the effect that cron.daily will automatically archive, gzip, and empty the
- log, when it exceeds 1M size.
- </para>
- <para>
- Any log files must be writable by whatever user <application>Privoxy</application>
- is being run as (default on UNIX, user id is <quote>privoxy</quote>).
+ When development goes modular and multi-user, the blocker, filter, and
+ per-user config will be stored in subdirectories of <quote>confdir</quote>.
+ For now, the configuration directory structure is flat, except for
+ <filename>confdir/templates</filename>, where the HTML templates for CGI
+ output reside (e.g. <application>Privoxy's</application> 404 error page).
</para>
+ -->
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@logfile logfile</literallayout>]]>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@confdir .</literallayout>]]>
</sect3>
-
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="jarfile"><title>jarfile</title>
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="templdir"><title>templdir</title>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Specifies:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>
- The file to store intercepted cookies in
- </para>
+ <para>An alternative directory where the templates are loaded from.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Type of value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>File name, relative to <literal>logdir</literal></para>
+ <para>Path name</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Default value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>Unset (commented out). When activated: jarfile (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> privoxy.jar (Windows)</para>
+ <para>unset</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Effect if unset:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>
- Intercepted cookies are not stored in a dedicated log file.
- </para>
+ <para>The templates are assumed to be located in confdir/template.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- The jarfile may grow to ridiculous sizes over time.
- </para>
- <para>
- If debug 8 (show header parsing) is enabled, cookies are
- written to the logfile with the rest of the headers.
+ <application>Privoxy's</application> original templates are usually
+ overwritten with each update. Use this option to relocate customized
+ templates that should be kept. As template variables might change
+ between updates, you shouldn't expect templates to work with
+ <application>Privoxy</application> releases other than the one
+ they were part of, though.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#jarfile jarfile</literallayout>]]>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#templdir .</literallayout>]]>
</sect3>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="trustfile"><title>trustfile</title>
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="logdir"><title>logdir</title>
+
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Specifies:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- The trust file to use
+ The directory where all logging takes place
+ (i.e. where the <filename>logfile</filename> is located).
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Type of value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
+ <para>Path name</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Default value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para><emphasis>Unset (commented out)</emphasis>. When activated: trust (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> trust.txt (Windows)</para>
+ <para>/var/log/privoxy (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> <application>Privoxy</application> installation dir (Windows) </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Effect if unset:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>
- The entire trust mechanism is turned off.
- </para>
+ <para><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- The trust mechanism is an experimental feature for building white-lists and should
- be used with care. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> recommended for the casual user.
- </para>
- <para>
- If you specify a trust file, <application>Privoxy</application> will only allow
- access to sites that are specified in the trustfile. Sites can be listed
- in one of two ways:
- </para>
- <para>
- Prepending a <literal>~</literal> character limits access to this site
- only (and any sub-paths within this site), e.g.
- <literal>~www.example.com</literal>.
- </para>
- <para>
- Or, you can designate sites as <emphasis>trusted referrers</emphasis>, by
- prepending the name with a <literal>+</literal> character. The effect is that
- access to untrusted sites will be granted -- but only if a link from this
- trusted referrer was used. The link target will then be added to the
- <quote>trustfile</quote> so that future, direct accesses will be granted.
- Sites added via this mechanism do not become trusted referrers themselves
- (i.e. they are added with a <literal>~</literal> designation).
- </para>
- <para>
- If you use the <literal>+</literal> operator in the trust file, it may grow
- considerably over time.
- </para>
- <para>
- It is recommended that <application>Privoxy</application> be compiled with
- the <literal>--disable-force</literal>, <literal>--disable-toggle</literal> and
- <literal> --disable-editor</literal> options, if this feature is to be
- used.
- </para>
- <para>
- Possible applications include limiting Internet access for children.
+ No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please.
</para>
-
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#trustfile trust</literallayout>]]>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@logdir .</literallayout>]]>
</sect3>
-</sect2>
-
-<!-- ~ End section ~ -->
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect2 id="local-set-up">
-<title>Local Set-up Documentation</title>
-
- <para>
- If you intend to operate <application>Privoxy</application> for more users
- than just yourself, it might be a good idea to let them know how to reach
- you, what you block and why you do that, your policies, etc.
- </para>
-
-
-<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="user-manual"><title>user-manual</title>
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="actionsfile"><title>
+actionsfile
+</title>
+<anchor id="default.action">
+<anchor id="standard.action">
+<anchor id="user.action">
+<!-- Note: slightly modified this section 04/28/02, hal. See NOTE. -->
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Specifies:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Location of the <application>Privoxy</application> User Manual.
+ The <link linkend="actions-file">actions file(s)</link> to use
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Type of value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>A fully qualified URI</para>
+ <para>Complete file name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term>Default value:</term>
+ <term>Default values:</term>
<listitem>
- <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
+ <simplelist>
+ <member>
+ <msgtext><literallayout> match-all.action # Actions that are applied to all sites and maybe overruled later on.</literallayout></msgtext>
+ </member>
+ <member>
+ <msgtext><literallayout> default.action # Main actions file</literallayout></msgtext>
+ </member>
+ <member>
+ <msgtext><literallayout> user.action # User customizations</literallayout></msgtext>
+ </member>
+ </simplelist>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Effect if unset:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/<replaceable class="parameter">version</replaceable>/user-manual/</ulink>
- will be used, where <replaceable class="parameter">version</replaceable> is the <application>Privoxy</application> version.
+ No actions are taken at all. More or less neutral proxying.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>
- The User Manual URI is used for help links from some of the internal CGI pages.
- The manual itself is normally packaged with the binary distributions, so you probably want
- to set this to a locally installed copy. For multi-user setups, you could provide a copy on
- a local webserver for all your users and use the corresponding URL here.
- </para>
<para>
- Examples:
+ Multiple <literal>actionsfile</literal> lines are permitted, and are in fact recommended!
</para>
- <para>
- Unix, in local filesystem:
- </para>
- <para>
- <screen> user-manual file:///usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;/user-manual/</screen>
- </para>
- <para>
- Windows, in local filesystem, <emphasis>must</emphasis> use forward slash notation:
- </para>
- <para>
- <screen> user-manual file:/c:/some-dir/privoxy-&p-version;/user-manual/</screen>
- </para>
- <para>
- Windows, UNC notation (with forward slashes):
- </para>
- <para>
- <screen> user-manual file://///some-server/some-path/privoxy-&p-version;/user-manual/</screen>
- </para>
- <para>
- Any platform, on local webserver (called <quote>local-webserver</quote>):
- </para>
- <para>
- <screen> user-manual http://local-webserver/privoxy-user-manual/</screen>
- </para>
- <![%user-man;[
- <!-- this gets hammered in conversion to config. Text repeated below. -->
- <warning>
- <para>
- If set, this option should be <emphasis>the first option in the config
- file</emphasis>, because it is used while the config file is being read.
+ <para>
+ The default values are <filename>default.action</filename>, which is the
+ <quote>main</quote> actions file maintained by the developers, and
+ <filename>user.action</filename>, where you can make your personal additions.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Actions files contain all the per site and per URL configuration for
+ ad blocking, cookie management, privacy considerations, etc.
+ There is no point in using <application>Privoxy</application> without at
+ least one actions file.
</para>
- </warning>
- ]]>
-
- <![%config-file;[
- <!-- alternate -->
<para>
- WARNING!!!
+ Note that since Privoxy 3.0.7, the complete filename, including the <quote>.action</quote>
+ extension has to be specified. The syntax change was necessary to be consistent
+ with the other file options and to allow previously forbidden characters.
</para>
- <blockquote>
- <para>
- If set, this option should be the first option in the config
- file, because it is used while the config file is being read.
- </para>
- </blockquote>
- ]]>
-
- </listitem>
+ </listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#user-manual http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</literallayout>]]>
+<!-- NOTE: alternate markup to make a simpler list doesn't work due to -->
+<!-- html -> text conversion, blah -->
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@actionsfile match-all.action # Actions that are applied to all sites and maybe overruled later on.</literallayout>]]>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@actionsfile default.action # Main actions file</literallayout>]]>
+<!--
+ XXX: Like user.filter, user.action should probably be commented out
+ by default as not all packages install it into the default directory.
+ fk 2007-11-07
+-->
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@actionsfile user.action # User customizations</literallayout>]]>
</sect3>
-
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="trust-info-url"><title>trust-info-url</title>
-
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filterfile"><title>filterfile</title>
+<anchor id="default.filter">
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Specifies:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- A URL to be displayed in the error page that users will see if access to an untrusted page is denied.
+ The <link linkend="filter-file">filter file(s)</link> to use
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Type of value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>URL</para>
+ <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Default value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>Two example URL are provided</para>
+ <para>default.filter (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> default.filter.txt (Windows)</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Effect if unset:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- No links are displayed on the "untrusted" error page.
+ No textual content filtering takes place, i.e. all
+ <literal>+<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>}</literal>
+ actions in the actions files are turned neutral.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- The value of this option only matters if the experimental trust mechanism has been
- activated. (See <link linkend="trustfile"><emphasis>trustfile</emphasis></link> above.)
+ Multiple <literal>filterfile</literal> lines are permitted.
</para>
<para>
- If you use the trust mechanism, it is a good idea to write up some on-line
- documentation about your trust policy and to specify the URL(s) here.
- Use multiple times for multiple URLs.
+ The <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link> contain content modification
+ rules that use <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link>. These rules permit
+ powerful changes on the content of Web pages, and optionally the headers
+ as well, e.g., you could try to disable your favorite JavaScript annoyances,
+ re-write the actual displayed text, or just have some fun
+ playing buzzword bingo with web pages.
</para>
<para>
- The URL(s) should be added to the trustfile as well, so users don't end up
- locked out from the information on why they were locked out in the first place!
+ The
+ <literal>+<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>}</literal>
+ actions rely on the relevant filter (<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>)
+ to be defined in a filter file!
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ A pre-defined filter file called <filename>default.filter</filename> that contains
+ a number of useful filters for common problems is included in the distribution.
+ See the section on the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
+ action for a list.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ It is recommended to place any locally adapted filters into a separate
+ file, such as <filename>user.filter</filename>.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@trust-info-url http://www.example.com/why_we_block.html</literallayout>]]>
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@trust-info-url http://www.example.com/what_we_allow.html</literallayout>]]>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@filterfile default.filter</literallayout>]]>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@filterfile user.filter # User customizations</literallayout>]]>
</sect3>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="admin-address"><title>admin-address</title>
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="logfile"><title>logfile</title>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Specifies:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- An email address to reach the proxy administrator.
+ The log file to use
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Type of value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>Email address</para>
+ <para>File name, relative to <literal>logdir</literal></para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Default value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
+ <para><emphasis>Unset (commented out)</emphasis>. When activated: logfile (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> privoxy.log (Windows).</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Effect if unset:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- No email address is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
+ No logfile is written.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>
- If both <literal>admin-address</literal> and <literal>proxy-info-url</literal>
- are unset, the whole "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will
- not be shown.
- </para>
+ <para>
+ The logfile is where all logging and error messages are written. The level
+ of detail and number of messages are set with the <literal>debug</literal>
+ option (see below). The logfile can be useful for tracking down a problem with
+ <application>Privoxy</application> (e.g., it's not blocking an ad you
+ think it should block) and it can help you to monitor what your browser
+ is doing.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Depending on the debug options below, the logfile may be a privacy risk
+ if third parties can get access to it. As most users will never look
+ at it, <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 and later only log fatal
+ errors by default.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ For most troubleshooting purposes, you will have to change that,
+ please refer to the debugging section for details.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Your logfile will grow indefinitely, and you will probably want to
+ periodically remove it. On Unix systems, you can do this with a cron job
+ (see <quote>man cron</quote>). For Red Hat based Linux distributions, a
+ <command>logrotate</command> script has been included.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Any log files must be writable by whatever user <application>Privoxy</application>
+ is being run as (on Unix, default user id is <quote>privoxy</quote>).
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#admin-address privoxy-admin@example.com</literallayout>]]>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@logfile logfile</literallayout>]]>
</sect3>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="proxy-info-url"><title>proxy-info-url</title>
-
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="trustfile"><title>trustfile</title>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Specifies:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- A URL to documentation about the local <application>Privoxy</application> setup,
- configuration or policies.
+ The name of the trust file to use
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Type of value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>URL</para>
+ <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Default value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
+ <para><emphasis>Unset (commented out)</emphasis>. When activated: trust (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> trust.txt (Windows)</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Effect if unset:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- No link to local documentation is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
+ The entire trust mechanism is disabled.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- If both <literal>admin-address</literal> and <literal>proxy-info-url</literal>
- are unset, the whole "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will
- not be shown.
- </para>
+ The trust mechanism is an experimental feature for building white-lists and should
+ be used with care. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> recommended for the casual user.
+ </para>
<para>
- This URL shouldn't be blocked ;-)
- </para>
- </listitem>
- </varlistentry>
-</variablelist>
-
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#proxy-info-url http://www.example.com/proxy-service.html</literallayout>]]>
-</sect3>
-
+ If you specify a trust file, <application>Privoxy</application> will only allow
+ access to sites that are specified in the trustfile. Sites can be listed
+ in one of two ways:
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Prepending a <literal>~</literal> character limits access to this site
+ only (and any sub-paths within this site), e.g.
+ <literal>~www.example.com</literal> allows access to
+ <literal>~www.example.com/features/news.html</literal>, etc.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Or, you can designate sites as <emphasis>trusted referrers</emphasis>, by
+ prepending the name with a <literal>+</literal> character. The effect is that
+ access to untrusted sites will be granted -- but only if a link from this
+ trusted referrer was used to get there. The link target will then be added
+ to the <quote>trustfile</quote> so that future, direct accesses will be
+ granted. Sites added via this mechanism do not become trusted referrers
+ themselves (i.e. they are added with a <literal>~</literal> designation).
+ There is a limit of 512 such entries, after which new entries will not be
+ made.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If you use the <literal>+</literal> operator in the trust file, it may grow
+ considerably over time.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ It is recommended that <application>Privoxy</application> be compiled with
+ the <literal>--disable-force</literal>, <literal>--disable-toggle</literal> and
+ <literal> --disable-editor</literal> options, if this feature is to be
+ used.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Possible applications include limiting Internet access for children.
+ </para>
+
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#trustfile trust</literallayout>]]>
+</sect3>
</sect2>
+
<!-- ~ End section ~ -->
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<term>Specifies:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Key values that determine what information gets logged to the
- <link linkend="logfile"><emphasis>logfile</emphasis></link>.
+ Key values that determine what information gets logged.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Default value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>12289 (i.e.: URLs plus informational and warning messages)</para>
+ <para>0 (i.e.: only fatal errors (that cause Privoxy to exit) are logged)</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Effect if unset:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Nothing gets logged.
+ Default value is used (see above).
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</para>
<para>
<programlisting>
- debug 1 # show each GET/POST/CONNECT request
- debug 2 # show each connection status
- debug 4 # show I/O status
- debug 8 # show header parsing
- debug 16 # log all data into the logfile
- debug 32 # debug force feature
- debug 64 # debug regular expression filter
- debug 128 # debug fast redirects
- debug 256 # debug GIF de-animation
- debug 512 # Common Log Format
- debug 1024 # debug kill pop-ups
- debug 2048 # CGI user interface
- debug 4096 # Startup banner and warnings.
- debug 8192 # Non-fatal errors
+ debug 1 # Log the destination for each request &my-app; let through. See also debug 1024.
+ debug 2 # show each connection status
+ debug 4 # show I/O status
+ debug 8 # show header parsing
+ debug 16 # log all data written to the network
+ debug 32 # debug force feature
+ debug 64 # debug regular expression filters
+ debug 128 # debug redirects
+ debug 256 # debug GIF de-animation
+ debug 512 # Common Log Format
+ debug 1024 # Log the destination for requests &my-app; didn't let through, and the reason why.
+ debug 2048 # CGI user interface
+ debug 4096 # Startup banner and warnings.
+ debug 8192 # Non-fatal errors
+ debug 32768 # log all data read from the network
</programlisting>
</para>
<para>
</para>
<para>
A debug level of 1 is informative because it will show you each request
- as it happens. <emphasis>1, 4096 and 8192 are highly recommended</emphasis>
- so that you will notice when things go wrong. The other levels are probably
- only of interest if you are hunting down a specific problem. They can produce
- a hell of an output (especially 16).
+ as it happens. <emphasis>1, 1024, 4096 and 8192 are recommended</emphasis>
+ so that you will notice when things go wrong. The other levels are
+ probably only of interest if you are hunting down a specific problem.
+ They can produce a hell of an output (especially 16).
<!-- LOL -->
</para>
<para>
- The reporting of <emphasis>fatal</emphasis> errors (i.e. ones which crash
- <application>Privoxy</application>) is always on and cannot be disabled.
+ &my-app; used to ship with the debug levels recommended above enabled by
+ default, but due to privacy concerns 3.0.7 and later are configured to
+ only log fatal errors.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If you are used to the more verbose settings, simply enable the debug lines
+ below again.
</para>
<para>
- If you want to use CLF (Common Log Format), you should set <quote>debug
+ If you want to use pure CLF (Common Log Format), you should set <quote>debug
512</quote> <emphasis>ONLY</emphasis> and not enable anything else.
</para>
+ <para>
+ <application>Privoxy</application> has a hard-coded limit for the
+ length of log messages. If it's reached, messages are logged truncated
+ and marked with <quote>... [too long, truncated]</quote>.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Please don't file any support requests without trying to reproduce
+ the problem with increased debug level first. Once you read the log
+ messages, you may even be able to solve the problem on your own.
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@debug 1 # show each GET/POST/CONNECT request</literallayout>]]>
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@debug 4096 # Startup banner and warnings</literallayout>]]>
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@debug 8192 # Errors - *we highly recommended enabling this*</literallayout>]]>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#debug 1 # Log the destination for each request &my-app; let through.</literallayout>]]>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#debug 1024 # Log the destination for requests &my-app; didn't let through, and the reason why.</literallayout>]]>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#debug 4096 # Startup banner and warnings</literallayout>]]>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#debug 8192 # Non-fatal errors</literallayout>]]>
</sect3>
<term>Specifies:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Whether to run only one server thread
+ Whether to run only one server thread.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- This option is only there for debug purposes and you should never
- need to use it. <emphasis>It will drastically reduce performance.</emphasis>
+ This option is only there for debugging purposes.
+ <emphasis>It will drastically reduce performance.</emphasis>
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#single-threaded</literallayout>]]>
</sect3>
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hostname"><title>hostname</title>
+
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The hostname shown on the CGI pages.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Text</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The hostname provided by the operating system is used.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ On some misconfigured systems resolving the hostname fails or
+ takes too much time and slows Privoxy down. Setting a fixed hostname
+ works around the problem.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ In other circumstances it might be desirable to show a hostname
+ other than the one returned by the operating system. For example
+ if the system has several different hostnames and you don't want
+ to use the first one.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Note that Privoxy does not validate the specified hostname value.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#hostname hostname.example.org</literallayout>]]>
+</sect3>
+
</sect2>
<!-- ~ End section ~ -->
<term>Specifies:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- The
IP address and TCP port on which <application>Privoxy</application> will
+ The address and TCP port on which <application>Privoxy</application> will
listen for client requests.
</para>
</listitem>
<term>Type of value:</term>
<listitem>
<para>[<replaceable class="parameter">IP-Address</replaceable>]:<replaceable class="parameter">Port</replaceable></para>
+ <para>[<replaceable class="parameter">Hostname</replaceable>]:<replaceable class="parameter">Port</replaceable></para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<term>Effect if unset:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Bind to 127.0.0.1 (localhost), port 8118. This is suitable and recommended for
- home users who run <application>Privoxy</application> on the same machine as
- their browser.
+ Bind to 127.0.0.1 (IPv4 localhost), port 8118. This is suitable and
+ recommended for home users who run <application>Privoxy</application> on
+ the same machine as their browser.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
will need to override the default.
</para>
<para>
- If you leave out the IP address, <application>Privoxy</application> will
- bind to all interfaces (addresses) on your machine and may become reachable
- from the Internet. In that case, consider using <link
- linkend="acls">access control lists</link> (ACL's, see below), and/or
- a firewall.
+ You can use this statement multiple times to make
+ <application>Privoxy</application> listen on more ports or more
+ <abbrev>IP</abbrev> addresses. Suitable if your operating system does not
+ support sharing <abbrev>IPv6</abbrev> and <abbrev>IPv4</abbrev> protocols
+ on the same socket.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If a hostname is used instead of an IP address, <application>Privoxy</application>
+ will try to resolve it to an IP address and if there are multiple, use the first
+ one returned.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If the address for the hostname isn't already known on the system
+ (for example because it's in /etc/hostname), this may result in DNS
+ traffic.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If the specified address isn't available on the system, or if the
+ hostname can't be resolved, <application>Privoxy</application>
+ will fail to start.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ IPv6 addresses containing colons have to be quoted by brackets.
+ They can only be used if <application>Privoxy</application> has
+ been compiled with IPv6 support. If you aren't sure if your version
+ supports it, have a look at
+ <literal>http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</literal>.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Some operating systems will prefer IPv6 to IPv4 addresses even if the
+ system has no IPv6 connectivity which is usually not expected by the user.
+ Some even rely on DNS to resolve localhost which mean the "localhost" address
+ used may not actually be local.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ It is therefore recommended to explicitly configure the intended IP address
+ instead of relying on the operating system, unless there's a strong reason not to.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If you leave out the address, <application>Privoxy</application> will bind to all
+ IPv4 interfaces (addresses) on your machine and may become reachable from the
+ Internet and/or the local network. Be aware that some GNU/Linux distributions
+ modify that behaviour without updating the documentation. Check for non-standard
+ patches if your <application>Privoxy</application>version behaves differently.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If you configure <application>Privoxy</application>to be reachable from the
+ network, consider using <link linkend="acls">access control lists</link>
+ (ACL's, see below), and/or a firewall.
</para>
<para>
If you open <application>Privoxy</application> to untrusted users, you will
- also want to turn off the <literal><link
+ also want to make sure that the following actions are disabled: <literal><link
linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link></literal> and
<literal><link linkend="enable-remote-toggle">enable-remote-toggle</link></literal>
- options!
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ With the exception noted above, listening on multiple addresses is currently
+ not supported by <application>Privoxy</application> directly.
+ It can be done on most operating systems by letting a packet filter
+ redirect request for certain addresses to Privoxy, though.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<para>
<programlisting>
listen-address 192.168.0.1:8118
+</programlisting>
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Suppose you are running <application>Privoxy</application> on an
+ IPv6-capable machine and you want it to listen on the IPv6 address
+ of the loopback device:
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <programlisting>
+ listen-address [::1]:8118
</programlisting>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
If set to 0, <application>Privoxy</application> will start in
- <quote>toggled off</quote> mode, i.e. behave like a normal, content-neutral
- proxy where all ad blocking, filtering, etc are disabled. See
- <literal>enable-remote-toggle</literal> below. This is not really useful
+ <quote>toggled off</quote> mode, i.e. mostly behave like a normal,
+ content-neutral proxy with both ad blocking and content filtering
+ disabled. See <literal>enable-remote-toggle</literal> below.
+<!--
+ This is not really useful
anymore, since toggling is much easier via <ulink
url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">the web interface</ulink> than via
editing the <filename>conf</filename> file.
+
+ Remote toggling is now disabled by default. fk 2007-11-07)
+-->
</para>
<para>
The windows version will only display the toggle icon in the system tray
<varlistentry>
<term>Default value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>1</para>
+ <para>0</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- When toggled off, <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal,
- content-neutral proxy, i.e. it acts as if none of the actions applied to
- any URL.
+ When toggled off, <application>Privoxy</application> mostly acts like a normal,
+ content-neutral proxy, i.e. doesn't block ads or filter content.
</para>
<para>
- For the time being, access to the toggle feature can <emphasis>not</emphasis> be
+ Access to the toggle feature can <emphasis>not</emphasis> be
controlled separately by <quote>ACLs</quote> or HTTP authentication,
so that everybody who can access <application>Privoxy</application> (see
<quote>ACLs</quote> and <literal>listen-address</literal> above) can
toggle it for all users. So this option is <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>
for multi-user environments with untrusted users.
</para>
+ <para>
+ Note that malicious client side code (e.g Java) is also
+ capable of using this option.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ As a lot of <application>Privoxy</application> users don't read
+ documentation, this feature is disabled by default.
+ </para>
<para>
Note that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect.
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@enable-remote-toggle 1</literallayout>]]>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@enable-remote-toggle 0</literallayout>]]>
</sect3>
<varlistentry>
<term>Default value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>1</para>
+ <para>0</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
the ongoing request, even if it is enabled in one of the action files.
</para>
<para>
- If you are using <application>Privoxy</application> in a
- multi-user environment or with untrustworthy clients and want to
- enforce filtering, you will have to disable this option,
- otherwise you can ignore it.
+ This feature is disabled by default. If you are using
+ <application>Privoxy</application> in a environment with trusted clients,
+ you may enable this feature at your discretion. Note that malicious client
+ side code (e.g Java) is also capable of using this feature.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ This option will be removed in future releases as it has been obsoleted
+ by the more general header taggers.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@enable-remote-http-toggle 1</literallayout>]]>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@enable-remote-http-toggle 0</literallayout>]]>
</sect3>
<varlistentry>
<term>Default value:</term>
<listitem>
- <para>1</para>
+ <para>0</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Notes:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- For the time being, access to the editor can <emphasis>not</emphasis> be
+ Access to the editor can <emphasis>not</emphasis> be
controlled separately by <quote>ACLs</quote> or HTTP authentication,
so that everybody who can access <application>Privoxy</application> (see
<quote>ACLs</quote> and <literal>listen-address</literal> above) can
- modify its configuration for all users. So this option is <emphasis>not
- recommended</emphasis> for multi-user environments with untrusted users.
+ modify its configuration for all users.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ This option is <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis> for environments
+ with untrusted users and as a lot of <application>Privoxy</application>
+ users don't read documentation, this feature is disabled by default.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Note that malicious client side code (e.g Java) is also
+ capable of using the actions editor and you shouldn't enable
+ this options unless you understand the consequences and are
+ sure your browser is configured correctly.
</para>
<para>
Note that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
-<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@enable-edit-actions 1</literallayout>]]>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@enable-edit-actions 0</literallayout>]]>
+</sect3>
+
+
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="enforce-blocks"><title>enforce-blocks</title>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Whether the user is allowed to ignore blocks and can <quote>go there anyway</quote>.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <replaceable>0 or 1</replaceable>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para><emphasis>0</emphasis></para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Blocks are not enforced.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <application>Privoxy</application> is mainly used to block and filter
+ requests as a service to the user, for example to block ads and other
+ junk that clogs the pipes. <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration
+ isn't perfect and sometimes innocent pages are blocked. In this situation it
+ makes sense to allow the user to enforce the request and have
+ <application>Privoxy</application> ignore the block.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ In the default configuration <application>Privoxy's</application>
+ <quote>Blocked</quote> page contains a <quote>go there anyway</quote>
+ link to adds a special string (the force prefix) to the request URL.
+ If that link is used, <application>Privoxy</application> will
+ detect the force prefix, remove it again and let the request pass.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Of course <application>Privoxy</application> can also be used to enforce
+ a network policy. In that case the user obviously should not be able to
+ bypass any blocks, and that's what the <quote>enforce-blocks</quote>
+ option is for. If it's enabled, <application>Privoxy</application> hides
+ the <quote>go there anyway</quote> link. If the user adds the force
+ prefix by hand, it will not be accepted and the circumvention attempt
+ is logged.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Examples:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ enforce-blocks 1
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@enforce-blocks 0</literallayout>]]>
</sect3>
+
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="acls"><title>
ACLs: permit-access and deny-access</title>
<term>Type of value:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- <replaceable class="parameter">src_addr</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable>]
- [<replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">dst_masklen</replaceable>]]
+ <replaceable class="parameter">src_addr</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>][/<replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable>]
+ [<replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>][/<replaceable class="parameter">dst_masklen</replaceable>]]
</para>
<para>
Where <replaceable class="parameter">src_addr</replaceable> and
- <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable> are IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or valid
- DNS names, and <replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable> and
+ <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable> are IPv4 addresses in dotted decimal notation or valid
+ DNS names, <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> is a port
+ number, and <replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable> and
<replaceable class="parameter">dst_masklen</replaceable> are subnet masks in CIDR notation, i.e. integer
values from 2 to 30 representing the length (in bits) of the network address. The masks and the whole
destination part are optional.
</para>
+ <para>
+ If your system implements
+ <ulink url="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3493">RFC 3493</ulink>, then
+ <replaceable class="parameter">src_addr</replaceable> and <replaceable
+ class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable> can be IPv6 addresses delimeted by
+ brackets, <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> can be a number
+ or a service name, and
+ <replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable> and
+ <replaceable class="parameter">dst_masklen</replaceable> can be a number
+ from 0 to 128.
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Default value:</term>
<listitem>
<para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
+ <para>
+ If no <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> is specified,
+ any port will match. If no <replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable> or
+ <replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable> is given, the complete IP
+ address has to match (i.e. 32 bits for IPv4 and 128 bits for IPv6).
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
option.
</para>
<para>
- Please see the warnings in the FAQ that this proxy is not intended to be a substitute
- for a firewall or to encourage anyone to defer addressing basic security
- weaknesses.
+ Please see the warnings in the FAQ that <application>Privoxy</application>
+ is not intended to be a substitute for a firewall or to encourage anyone
+ to defer addressing basic security weaknesses.
</para>
<para>
Multiple ACL lines are OK.
- If any ACLs are specified, then the <application>Privoxy</application>
- talks only to IP addresses that match at least one <literal>permit-access</literal> line
+ If any ACLs are specified, <application>Privoxy</application> only talks
+ to IP addresses that match at least one <literal>permit-access</literal> line
and don't match any subsequent <literal>deny-access</literal> line. In other words, the
last match wins, with the default being <literal>deny-access</literal>.
</para>
like <quote>*.org</quote> or partial domain names. If a DNS name resolves to multiple
IP addresses, only the first one is used.
</para>
+ <para>
+ Some systems allow IPv4 clients to connect to IPv6 server sockets.
+ Then the client's IPv4 address will be translated by the system into
+ IPv6 address space with special prefix ::ffff:0:0/96 (so called IPv4
+ mapped IPv6 address). <application>Privoxy</application> can handle it
+ and maps such ACL addresses automatically.
+ </para>
<para>
Denying access to particular sites by ACL may have undesired side effects
- if the site in question is hosted on a machine which also hosts other sites.
+ if the site in question is hosted on a machine which also hosts other sites
+ (most sites are).
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</para>
<para>
Allow any host on the same class C subnet as www.privoxy.org access to
- nothing but www.example.com:
+ nothing but www.example.com (or other domains hosted on the same system):
</para>
<para>
<screen>
</para>
<para>
Allow access from any host on the 26-bit subnet 192.168.45.64 to anywhere,
- with the exception that 192.168.45.73 may not access www.dirty-stuff.example.com:
+ with the exception that 192.168.45.73 may not access the IP address behind
+ www.dirty-stuff.example.com:
</para>
<para>
<screen>
deny-access 192.168.45.73 www.dirty-stuff.example.com
</screen>
</para>
+ <para>
+ Allow access from the IPv4 network 192.0.2.0/24 even if listening on
+ an IPv6 wild card address (not supported on all platforms):
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <programlisting>
+ permit-access 192.0.2.0/24
+</programlisting>
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ This is equivalent to the following line even if listening on an
+ IPv4 address (not supported on all platforms):
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <programlisting>
+ permit-access [::ffff:192.0.2.0]/120
+</programlisting>
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>
This feature allows routing of HTTP requests through a chain of
multiple proxies.
- It can be used to better protect privacy and confidentiality when
- accessing specific domains by routing requests to those domains
- through an anonymous public proxy (see e.g. <ulink
- url="http://www.multiproxy.org/anon_list.htm">http://www.multiproxy.org/anon_list.htm</ulink>)
- Or to use a caching proxy to speed up browsing. Or chaining to a parent
- proxy may be necessary because the machine that <application>Privoxy</application>
- runs on has no direct Internet access.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Forwarding can be used to chain Privoxy with a caching proxy to speed
+ up browsing. Using a parent proxy may also be necessary if the machine
+ that <application>Privoxy</application> runs on has no direct Internet access.
+</para>
+<para>
+ Note that parent proxies can severely decrease your privacy level.
+ For example a parent proxy could add your IP address to the request
+ headers and if it's a caching proxy it may add the <quote>Etag</quote>
+ header to revalidation requests again, even though you configured Privoxy
+ to remove it. It may also ignore Privoxy's header time randomization and use the
+ original values which could be used by the server as cookie replacement
+ to track your steps between visits.
</para>
<para>
denote <quote>all URLs</quote>.
<replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
is the DNS name or IP address of the parent HTTP proxy through which the requests should be forwarded,
- optionally followed by its listening port (default: 8080).
+ optionally followed by its listening port (default: 8000).
Use a single dot (<literal>.</literal>) to denote <quote>no forwarding</quote>.
</para>
</listitem>
If <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is <quote>.</quote>, then requests are not
forwarded to another HTTP proxy but are made directly to the web servers.
</para>
+ <para>
+ <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> can be a
+ numerical IPv6 address (if
+ <ulink url="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3493">RFC 3493</ulink> is
+ implemented). To prevent clashes with the port delimiter, the whole IP
+ address has to be put into brackets. On the other hand a <replaceable
+ class="parameter">target_pattern</replaceable> containing an IPv6 address
+ has to be put into angle brackets (normal brackets are reserved for
+ regular expressions already).
+ </para>
<para>
Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
</para>
<term>Examples:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Everything goes to an example anonymizing proxy, except SSL on port 443 (which it doesn't handle):
+ Everything goes to an example parent proxy, except SSL on port 443 (which it doesn't handle):
</para>
<para>
<screen>
- forward / anon-proxy.example.org:8080
+ forward / parent-proxy.example.org:8080
forward :443 .
</screen>
</para>
</para>
<para>
<screen>
- forward / caching-proxy.example-isp.net:8000
- forward .example-isp.net .
+ forward / caching-proxy.isp.example.net:8000
+ forward .isp.example.net .
</screen>
</para>
+ <para>
+ Parent proxy specified by an IPv6 address:
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <programlisting>
+ forward / [2001:DB8::1]:8000
+</programlisting>
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Suppose your parent proxy doesn't support IPv6:
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <programlisting>
+ forward / parent-proxy.example.org:8000
+ forward ipv6-server.example.org .
+ forward <[2-3][0-9a-f][0-9a-f][0-9a-f]:*> .
+</programlisting>
+ </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="socks"><title>
-forward-socks4 and forward-socks4a</title>
+forward-socks4, forward-socks4a and forward-socks5</title>
<anchor id="forward-socks4">
<anchor id="forward-socks4a">
<term>Specifies:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Through which SOCKS proxy (and to which parent HTTP proxy) specific requests should be routed.
+ Through which SOCKS proxy (and optionally to which parent HTTP proxy) specific requests should be routed.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
</para>
<para>
- where <replaceable class="parameter">target_pattern</replaceable> is a <link linkend="af-patterns">URL pattern</link>
- that specifies to which requests (i.e. URLs) this forward rule shall apply. Use <literal>/</literal> to
- denote <quote>all URLs</quote>.
- <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> and <replaceable class="parameter">socks_proxy</replaceable>
- are IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or valid DNS names (<replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>
+ where <replaceable class="parameter">target_pattern</replaceable> is a
+ <link linkend="af-patterns">URL pattern</link> that specifies to which
+ requests (i.e. URLs) this forward rule shall apply. Use <literal>/</literal> to
+ denote <quote>all URLs</quote>. <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>
+ and <replaceable class="parameter">socks_proxy</replaceable>
+ are IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or valid DNS names
+ (<replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>
may be <quote>.</quote> to denote <quote>no HTTP forwarding</quote>), and the optional
- <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> parameters are TCP ports, i.e. integer values from 1 to 64535
+ <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> parameters are TCP ports,
+ i.e. integer values from 1 to 65535
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
is that in the SOCKS 4A protocol, the DNS resolution of the target hostname happens on the SOCKS
server, while in SOCKS 4 it happens locally.
</para>
+ <para>
+ With <literal>forward-socks5</literal> the DNS resolution will happen on the remote server as well.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <replaceable class="parameter">socks_proxy</replaceable> and
+ <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> can be a
+ numerical IPv6 address (if
+ <ulink url="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3493">RFC 3493</ulink> is
+ implemented). To prevent clashes with the port delimiter, the whole IP
+ address has to be put into brackets. On the other hand a <replaceable
+ class="parameter">target_pattern</replaceable> containing an IPv6 address
+ has to be put into angle brackets (normal brackets are reserved for
+ regular expressions already).
+ </para>
<para>
If <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is <quote>.</quote>, then requests are not
forwarded to another HTTP proxy but are made (HTTP-wise) directly to the web servers, albeit through
</para>
<para>
<screen>
- forward-socks4a / socks-gw.example.com:1080 www-cache.example-isp.net:8080
+ forward-socks4a / socks-gw.example.com:1080 www-cache.isp.example.net:8080
forward .example.com .
</screen>
</para>
</para>
<para>
- To chain Privoxy and Tor, both running on the same system, you should use
- the rule:
+ To chain Privoxy and Tor, both running on the same system, you would use
+ something like:
</para>
<para>
<screen>
- forward-socks4 / 127.0.0.1:9050 .
+ forward-socks5 / 127.0.0.1:9050 .
</screen>
</para>
<para>
- The public <application>Tor</application> network can't be used to reach your local network,
- therefore it's a good idea to make some exceptions:
+ The public <application>Tor</application> network can't be used to
+ reach your local network, if you need to access local servers you
+ therefore might want to make some exceptions:
</para>
<para>
<screen>
<para>
Unencrypted connections to systems in these address ranges will
be as (un)secure as the local network is, but the alternative is that you
- can't reach the network at all.
+ can't reach the local network through <application>Privoxy</application>
+ at all. Of course this may actually be desired and there is no reason
+ to make these exceptions if you aren't sure you need them.
</para>
<para>
If you also want to be able to reach servers in your local network by
</para>
<para>
- Assume that host-a has a PPP connection to isp-a.net. And host-b has a PPP connection to
- isp-b.
net. Both run <application>Privoxy</application>. Their forwarding
+ Assume that host-a has a PPP connection to isp-a.example.net. And host-b has a PPP connection to
+ isp-b.
example.org. Both run <application>Privoxy</application>. Their forwarding
configuration can look like this:
</para>
<para>
<screen>
forward / .
- forward .isp-b.net host-b:8118
+ forward .isp-b.example.net host-b:8118
</screen>
</para>
<para>
<screen>
forward / .
- forward .isp-a.net host-a:8118
+ forward .isp-a.example.org host-a:8118
</screen>
</para>
<para>
If you intend to chain <application>Privoxy</application> and
- <application>squid</application> locally, then chain as
+ <application>squid</application> locally, then chaining as
<literal>browser -> squid -> privoxy</literal> is the recommended way.
</para>
</para>
<para>
- You could just as well decide to only forward requests for Windows executables through
- a virus-scanning parent proxy, say, on <literal>antivir.example.com</literal>, port 8010:
+ You could just as well decide to only forward requests you suspect
+ of leading to Windows executables through a virus-scanning parent proxy,
+ say, on <literal>antivir.example.com</literal>, port 8010:
</para>
<para>
<term>Effect if unset:</term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Forwarded connections are treated like direct connections and no retry attempts are made.
+ Connections forwarded through other proxies are treated like direct connections and no retry attempts are made.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<listitem>
<para>
<replaceable class="parameter">forwarded-connect-retries</replaceable> is mainly interesting
- for socks4a connections, where Privoxy can't detect why the connections failed.
+ for socks4a connections, where <application>Privoxy</application> can't detect why the connections failed.
The connection might have failed because of a DNS timeout in which case a retry makes sense,
but it might also have failed because the server doesn't exist or isn't reachable. In this
case the retry will just delay the appearance of Privoxy's error message.
</para>
<para>
- Only use this option, if you are getting many forwarding related error messages,
+ Note that in the context of this option, <quote>forwarded connections</quote> includes all connections
+ that Privoxy forwards through other proxies. This option is not limited to the HTTP CONNECT method.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Only use this option, if you are getting lots of forwarding-related error messages
that go away when you try again manually. Start with a small value and check Privoxy's
logfile from time to time, to see how many retries are usually needed.
</para>
<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@forwarded-connect-retries 0</literallayout>]]>
</sect3>
+</sect2>
+
+<sect2 id="misc">
+<title>Miscellaneous</title>
+
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="accept-intercepted-requests"><title>accept-intercepted-requests</title>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Whether intercepted requests should be treated as valid.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <replaceable>0 or 1</replaceable>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para><emphasis>0</emphasis></para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Only proxy requests are accepted, intercepted requests are treated as invalid.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ If you don't trust your clients and want to force them
+ to use <application>Privoxy</application>, enable this
+ option and configure your packet filter to redirect outgoing
+ HTTP connections into <application>Privoxy</application>.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Make sure that <application>Privoxy's</application> own requests
+ aren't redirected as well. Additionally take care that
+ <application>Privoxy</application> can't intentionally connect
+ to itself, otherwise you could run into redirection loops if
+ <application>Privoxy's</application> listening port is reachable
+ by the outside or an attacker has access to the pages you visit.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Examples:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ accept-intercepted-requests 1
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@accept-intercepted-requests 0</literallayout>]]>
+</sect3>
+
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="allow-cgi-request-crunching"><title>allow-cgi-request-crunching</title>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Whether requests to <application>Privoxy's</application> CGI pages can be blocked or redirected.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <replaceable>0 or 1</replaceable>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para><emphasis>0</emphasis></para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <application>Privoxy</application> ignores block and redirect actions for its CGI pages.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ By default <application>Privoxy</application> ignores block or redirect actions
+ for its CGI pages. Intercepting these requests can be useful in multi-user
+ setups to implement fine-grained access control, but it can also render the complete
+ web interface useless and make debugging problems painful if done without care.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Don't enable this option unless you're sure that you really need it.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Examples:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ allow-cgi-request-crunching 1
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@allow-cgi-request-crunching 0</literallayout>]]>
+</sect3>
+
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="split-large-forms"><title>split-large-forms</title>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Whether the CGI interface should stay compatible with broken HTTP clients.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <replaceable>0 or 1</replaceable>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para><emphasis>0</emphasis></para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The CGI form generate long GET URLs.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <application>Privoxy's</application> CGI forms can lead to
+ rather long URLs. This isn't a problem as far as the HTTP
+ standard is concerned, but it can confuse clients with arbitrary
+ URL length limitations.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Enabling split-large-forms causes <application>Privoxy</application>
+ to divide big forms into smaller ones to keep the URL length down.
+ It makes editing a lot less convenient and you can no longer
+ submit all changes at once, but at least it works around this
+ browser bug.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If you don't notice any editing problems, there is no reason
+ to enable this option, but if one of the submit buttons appears
+ to be broken, you should give it a try.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Examples:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ split-large-forms 1
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@split-large-forms 0</literallayout>]]>
+</sect3>
+
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="keep-alive-timeout"><title>keep-alive-timeout</title>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Number of seconds after which an open connection will no longer be reused.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <replaceable>Time in seconds.</replaceable>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>None</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Connections are not kept alive.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ This option allows clients to keep the connection to &my-app;
+ alive. If the server supports it, &my-app; will keep
+ the connection to the server alive as well. Under certain
+ circumstances this may result in speed-ups.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ By default, &my-app; will close the connection to the server if
+ the client connection gets closed, or if the specified timeout
+ has been reached without a new request coming in. This behaviour
+ can be changed with the <ulink
+ url="#CONNECTION-SHARING">connection-sharing</ulink> option.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ This option has no effect if <application>Privoxy</application>
+ has been compiled without keep-alive support.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Note that a timeout of five seconds as used in the default
+ configuration file significantly decreases the number of
+ connections that will be reused. The value is used because
+ some browsers limit the number of connections they open to
+ a single host and apply the same limit to proxies. This can
+ result in a single website <quote>grabbing</quote> all the
+ connections the browser allows, which means connections to
+ other websites can't be opened until the connections currently
+ in use time out.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Several users have reported this as a Privoxy bug, so the
+ default value has been reduced. Consider increasing it to
+ 300 seconds or even more if you think your browser can handle
+ it. If your browser appears to be hanging it can't.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Examples:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ keep-alive-timeout 300
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@keep-alive-timeout 5</literallayout>]]>
+</sect3>
+
+
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="default-server-timeout"><title>default-server-timeout</title>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Assumed server-side keep-alive timeout if not specified by the server.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <replaceable>Time in seconds.</replaceable>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>None</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Connections for which the server didn't specify the keep-alive
+ timeout are not reused.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Enabling this option significantly increases the number of connections
+ that are reused, provided the <ulink
+ url="#KEEP-ALIVE-TIMEOUT">keep-alive-timeout</ulink> option
+ is also enabled.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ While it also increases the number of connections problems
+ when &my-app; tries to reuse a connection that already has
+ been closed on the server side, or is closed while &my-app;
+ is trying to reuse it, this should only be a problem if it
+ happens for the first request sent by the client. If it happens
+ for requests on reused client connections, &my-app; will simply
+ close the connection and the client is supposed to retry the
+ request without bothering the user.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Enabling this option is therefore only recommended if the
+ <ulink
+ url="#CONNECTION-SHARING">connection-sharing</ulink> option
+ is disabled.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ It is an error to specify a value larger than the <ulink
+ url="#KEEP-ALIVE-TIMEOUT">keep-alive-timeout</ulink> value.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ This option has no effect if <application>Privoxy</application>
+ has been compiled without keep-alive support.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Examples:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ default-server-timeout 60
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#default-server-timeout 60</literallayout>]]>
+</sect3>
+
+
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="connection-sharing"><title>connection-sharing</title>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Whether or not outgoing connections that have been kept alive
+ should be shared between different incoming connections.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <replaceable>0 or 1</replaceable>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>None</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Connections are not shared.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ This option has no effect if <application>Privoxy</application>
+ has been compiled without keep-alive support, or if it's disabled.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Note that reusing connections doesn't necessary cause speedups.
+ There are also a few privacy implications you should be aware of.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If this option is effective, outgoing connections are shared between
+ clients (if there are more than one) and closing the browser that initiated
+ the outgoing connection does no longer affect the connection between &my-app;
+ and the server unless the client's request hasn't been completed yet.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If the outgoing connection is idle, it will not be closed until either
+ <application>Privoxy's</application> or the server's timeout is reached.
+ While it's open, the server knows that the system running &my-app; is still
+ there.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If there are more than one client (maybe even belonging to multiple users),
+ they will be able to reuse each others connections. This is potentially
+ dangerous in case of authentication schemes like NTLM where only the
+ connection is authenticated, instead of requiring authentication for
+ each request.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If there is only a single client, and if said client can keep connections
+ alive on its own, enabling this option has next to no effect. If the client
+ doesn't support connection keep-alive, enabling this option may make sense
+ as it allows &my-app; to keep outgoing connections alive even if the client
+ itself doesn't support it.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ You should also be aware that enabling this option increases the likelihood
+ of getting the "No server or forwarder data" error message, especially if you
+ are using a slow connection to the Internet.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ This option should only be used by experienced users who
+ understand the risks and can weight them against the benefits.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Examples:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ connection-sharing 1
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#connection-sharing 1</literallayout>]]>
+</sect3>
+
+
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="socket-timeout"><title>socket-timeout</title>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Number of seconds after which a socket times out if
+ no data is received.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <replaceable>Time in seconds.</replaceable>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>None</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ A default value of 300 seconds is used.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The default is quite high and you probably want to reduce it.
+ If you aren't using an occasionally slow proxy like Tor, reducing
+ it to a few seconds should be fine.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Examples:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ socket-timeout 300
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@socket-timeout 300</literallayout>]]>
+</sect3>
+
+
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="max-client-connections"><title>max-client-connections</title>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Maximum number of client connections that will be served.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <replaceable>Positive number.</replaceable>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>None</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Connections are served until a resource limit is reached.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ &my-app; creates one thread (or process) for every incoming client
+ connection that isn't rejected based on the access control settings.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If the system is powerful enough, &my-app; can theoretically deal with
+ several hundred (or thousand) connections at the same time, but some
+ operating systems enforce resource limits by shutting down offending
+ processes and their default limits may be below the ones &my-app; would
+ require under heavy load.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Configuring &my-app; to enforce a connection limit below the thread
+ or process limit used by the operating system makes sure this doesn't
+ happen. Simply increasing the operating system's limit would work too,
+ but if &my-app; isn't the only application running on the system,
+ you may actually want to limit the resources used by &my-app;.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If &my-app; is only used by a single trusted user, limiting the
+ number of client connections is probably unnecessary. If there
+ are multiple possibly untrusted users you probably still want to
+ additionally use a packet filter to limit the maximal number of
+ incoming connections per client. Otherwise a malicious user could
+ intentionally create a high number of connections to prevent other
+ users from using &my-app;.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Obviously using this option only makes sense if you choose a limit
+ below the one enforced by the operating system.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Examples:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ max-client-connections 256
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#max-client-connections 256</literallayout>]]>
+</sect3>
+
+
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-empty-doc-returns-ok"><title>handle-as-empty-doc-returns-ok</title>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The status code Privoxy returns for pages blocked with
+ <!-- URL will only end up in the user manual so the relative link should work. -->
+ <literal><ulink url="actions-file.html#HANDLE-AS-EMPTY-DOCUMENT">+handle-as-empty-document</ulink></literal>.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <replaceable>0 or 1</replaceable>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>0</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Privoxy returns a status 403(forbidden) for all blocked pages.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if set:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Privoxy returns a status 200(OK) for pages blocked with +handle-as-empty-document
+ and a status 403(Forbidden) for all other blocked pages.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ This is a work-around for Firefox bug 492459:
+ <quote>
+ Websites are no longer rendered if SSL requests for JavaScripts are blocked by a proxy.
+ </quote>
+ (<ulink url="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=492459"
+ >https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=492459</ulink>)
+ As the bug has been fixed for quite some time this option should no longer
+ be needed and will be removed in a future release. Please speak up if you
+ have a reason why the option should be kept around.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#handle-as-empty-doc-returns-ok 1</literallayout>]]>
+</sect3>
+
+
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="enable-compression"><title>enable-compression</title>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Whether or not buffered content is compressed before delivery.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <replaceable>0 or 1</replaceable>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>0</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Privoxy does not compress buffered content.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if set:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Privoxy compresses buffered content before delivering it to the client,
+ provided the client supports it.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ This directive is only supported if Privoxy has been compiled with
+ FEATURE_COMPRESSION, which should not to be confused with FEATURE_ZLIB.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Compressing buffered content is mainly useful if Privoxy and the
+ client are running on different systems. If they are running on the
+ same system, enabling compression is likely to slow things down.
+ If you didn't measure otherwise, you should assume that it does
+ and keep this option disabled.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Privoxy will not compress buffered content below a certain length.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#enable-compression 1</literallayout>]]>
+</sect3>
+
+
+<sect3 renderas="sect4" id="compression-level"><title>compression-level</title>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The compression level that is passed to the zlib library when compressing buffered content.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <replaceable>Positive number ranging from 0 to 9.</replaceable>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>1</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Compressing the data more takes usually longer than compressing
+ it less or not compressing it at all. Which level is best depends
+ on the connection between Privoxy and the client. If you can't
+ be bothered to benchmark it for yourself, you should stick with
+ the default and keep compression disabled.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If compression is disabled, the compression level is irrelevant.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Examples:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <screen>
+ # Best speed (compared to the other levels)
+ compression-level 1
+ # Best compression
+ compression-level 9
+ # No compression. Only useful for testing as the added header
+ # slightly increases the amount of data that has to be sent.
+ # If your benchmark shows that using this compression level
+ # is superior to using no compression at all, the benchmark
+ # is likely to be flawed.
+ compression-level 0
+ </screen>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+<![%config-file;[<literallayout>@@#compression-level 1</literallayout>]]>
+</sect3>
+
+
</sect2>
<!-- ~ End section ~ -->
<para>
The <quote>hide-console</quote> option is specific to the MS-Win console
version of <application>Privoxy</application>. If this option is used,
- <application>Privoxy</application> will disconnect from and hide the
+ <application>Privoxy</application> will disconnect from and hide the
command console.
</para>
projects / privoxy.git / blobdiff