This file belongs into
ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
- $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9 Exp $
+ $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes Exp $
Written by and Copyright (C) 2001 the SourceForge
Privoxy team. http://www.privoxy.org/
========================================================================
NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
- anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation. You have been warned!
- Failure to abide by this rule will result in the revocation of your license
- to live a peaceful existence!
+ anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
========================================================================
-->
<artheader>
<title>Privoxy User Manual</title>
-<pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9 Exp $</pubdate>
+<pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes Exp $</pubdate>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<para>
The user manual gives users information on how to install, configure and use
- <application>Privoxy</application>.
+ <ulink
+ url="http://www.privoxy.org/"><application>Privoxy</application></ulink>.
</para>
-<!--
- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate:
--->
+<!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
&p-intro;
+<!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
<para>
You can find the latest version of the user manual at <ulink
]]>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect2>
+<sect2 id="newfeatures">
<title>New Features</title>
<para>
In addition to <application>Internet Junkbuster's</application> traditional
- feature of ad and banner blocking and cookie management,
+ features of ad and banner blocking and cookie management,
<application>Privoxy</application> provides new features<![%p-not-stable;[,
some of them currently under development]]>:
+<anchor id="testing"/>
</para>
<!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
&newfeatures;
<!-- end boilerplate -->
-
</sect2>
</sect1>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
+
+<para>
+ <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
+ packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
+ For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
+ <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project Page</ulink>.
+</para>
+
<para>
- <application>Privoxy</application> is available as raw source code (tarball
- or via CVS), or pre-compiled binaries for various platforms. See the <ulink
- url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project Page</ulink> for
- the most up to date release information.
- <application>Privoxy</application> is also available via <ulink
- url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/ijbswa/current/">CVS</ulink>.
- <![%p-not-stable;[This is the recommended approach at this time.]]> But
- please be aware that CVS is constantly changing, and it may break in
- mysterious ways.
+ If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
+ possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
+ version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
+ CVS repository</ulink> or simply download <ulink
+ url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.gz">the nightly CVS
+ tarball.</ulink>
</para>
<!-- Include supported.sgml boilerplate -->
- &supported;
+ &supported;
<!-- end boilerplate -->
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Source</title>
-
-
-<!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
- &buildsource;
-<!-- end boilerplate -->
+<sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
<para>
- For Redhat and SuSE Linux RPM packages, see below.
+ Note: If you have a previous <application>Junkbuster</application> or
+ <application>Privoxy</application> installation on your system, you
+ will either need to remove it, or that might be done by the setup
+ procedure. (See below for your platform).
</para>
-
-<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 id="installation-rh"><title>Red Hat</title>
<para>
- To build Redhat RPM packages from source, install source as above. Then:
+ In any case <emphasis>be sure to backup your old configuration
+ if it is valuable to you.</emphasis> In that case, also see the
+ <link linkend="upgradersnote">note to upgraders</link>.
</para>
<para>
- <screen>
- autoheader
- autoconf
- ./configure
- make redhat-dist
- </screen>
+ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
</para>
-<para>
- This will create both binary and src RPMs in the usual places. Example:
-</para>
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Redhat and SuSE RPMs</title>
<para>
- /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i686/privoxy-&p-version;-1.i686.rpm
-</para>
-<para>
- /usr/src/redhat/SRPMS/privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm
+ RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh <name-of-rpm.rpm></literal>,
+ and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for configuration files.
</para>
<para>
- To install, of course:
+ Note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
+ on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
</para>
+</sect3>
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian</title>
<para>
- <screen>
- rpm -Uvv /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i686/privoxy-&p-version;-1.i686.rpm
- </screen>
+ FIXME.
</para>
+</sect3>
-<para>
- This will place the <application>Privoxy</application> configuration
- files in <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename>, and log files in
- <filename>/var/log/privoxy/</filename>. Run
- <quote><command>chkconfig privoxy on</command></quote> to have
- <application>Privoxy</application> start automatically during init.
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
+<para>
+ Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
+ the installation process.
</para>
-
</sect3>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 id="installation-suse"><title>SuSE</title>
-<para>
- To build SuSE RPM packages, install source as above. Then:
-</para>
+<sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX</title>
<para>
- <screen>
- autoheader
- autoconf
- ./configure
- make suse-dist
- </screen>
+ Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
+ untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
+ things go. FIXME.
</para>
+</sect3>
-<para>
- This will create both binary and src RPMs in the usual places. Example:
-</para>
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
<para>
- /usr/src/packages/RPMS/i686/privoxy-&p-version;-1.i686.rpm
+ First, make sure that no previous installations of
+ <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
+ <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
+ system.
</para>
+
<para>
- /usr/src/packages/SRPMS/privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm
+ Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
+ guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
+ <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
+ startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
</para>
<para>
- To install, of course:
+ The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
+ into will contain all of the configuration files.
</para>
+</sect3>
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Max OSX</title>
<para>
- <screen>
- rpm -Uvv /usr/src/packages/RPMS/i686/privoxy-&p-version;-1.i686.rpm
- </screen>
+ FIXME.
</para>
+</sect3>
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
<para>
- This will place the <application>Privoxy</application> configuration
- files in <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename>, and log files in
- <filename>/var/log/privoxy/</filename>.
+ Unpack the <literal>.lha</literal> archive, then FIXME.
</para>
-
</sect3>
-
+</sect2>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
+<sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
-<!--
-Thanx David Schmidt!
--->
+<!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
+&buildsource;
+<!-- end boilerplate -->
+</sect2>
-<para>
- <application>Privoxy</application> is packaged in a WarpIN self-
- installing archive. The self-installing program will be named depending
- on the release version, something like:
- <filename>privoxyos2_setup_&p-version;.exe</filename>. In order to install it, simply
- run this executable or double-click on its icon and follow the WarpIN
- installation panels. A shadow of the <application>Privoxy</application>
- executable will be placed in your startup folder so it will start
- automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
-</para>
+</sect1>
-<para>
- The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
- into will contain all of the configuration files.
-</para>
+<!-- ~ End section ~ -->
-<para>
- If you would like to build binary images on OS/2 yourself, you will need
- a few Unix-like tools: autoconf, autoheader and sh. These tools will be
- used to create the required config.h file, which is not part of the
- source distribution because it differs based on platform. You will also
- need a compiler.
- The distribution has been created using IBM VisualAge compilers, but you
- can use any compiler you like. GCC/EMX has the disadvantage of needing
- to be single-threaded due to a limitation of EMX's implementation of the
- <function>select()</function> socket call.
-</para>
-<para>
- In addition to needing the source code distribution as outlined earlier,
- you will want to extract the <filename>os2seutp</filename> directory from CVS:
- <screen>
- cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa login
- cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa co os2setup
- </screen>
- This will create a directory named os2setup/, which will contain the
- <filename>Makefile.vac</filename> makefile and <filename>os2build.cmd</filename>
- which is used to completely create the binary distribution. The sequence
- of events for building the executable for yourself goes something like this:
- <screen>
- cd current
- autoheader
- autoconf
- sh configure
- cd ..\os2setup
- nmake -f Makefile.vac
- </screen>
- You will see this sequence laid out in <filename>os2build.cmd</filename>.
-</para>
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-</sect3>
+<sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using <application>Privoxy</application></title>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 id="installation-win"><title>Windows</title>
-<para>Click-click. (I need help on this. Not a clue here. Also for
-configuration section below. HB.)
+<sect2 id="upgradersnote">
+<title>Note to Upgraders</title>
+<para>
+ There are very significant changes from older versions of
+ <application>Junkbuster</application> to the current
+ <application>Privoxy</application>. Configuration is substantially
+ changed. <application>Junkbuster 2.0.x</application> and earlier
+ configuration files will not migrate. The functionality of the old
+ <filename>blockfile</filename>, <filename>cookiefile</filename> and
+ <filename>imagelist</filename>, are now combined into the
+ <quote>actions file</quote> (<filename>default.action</filename>
+ for most installations).
</para>
-</sect3>
-
-<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<sect3 id="installation-other"><title>Other</title>
<para>
- Some quick notes on other Operating Systems.
+ A <quote>filter file</quote> (typically <filename>default.filter</filename>)
+ is new with <application>Privoxy 2.9.x</application>, and provides some
+ of the new sophistication (explained below). <filename>config</filename> is
+ much the same as before.
+</para>
+<para>
+ If upgrading from a 2.0.x version, you will have to use the new config
+ files, and possibly adapt any personal rules from your older files.
+ When porting personal rules over from the old <filename>blockfile</filename>
+ to the new actions file, please note that even the pattern syntax has
+ changed.
+ If upgrading from 2.9.x development versions, it is still recommended
+ to use the new configuration files.
</para>
-
<para>
- For FreeBSD (and other *BSDs?), the build will require <command>gmake</command>
- instead of the included <command>make</command>. <command>gmake</command> is
- available from <ulink url="http://www.gnu.org">http://www.gnu.org</ulink>.
- The rest should be the same as above for Linux/Unix.
+ A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading:
</para>
-</sect3>
-</sect2>
+<para>
+ <itemizedlist>
-</sect1>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The default listening port is now 8118 due to a conflict with another
+ service (NAS).
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Some installers may remove earlier versions completely. Save any
+ important configuration files!
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <application>Privoxy</application> is controllable with a web browser
+ at the special URL: <ulink
+ url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
+ (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>). Many
+ aspects of configuration can be done here, including temporarily disabling
+ <application>Privoxy</application>.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The primary configuration file for cookie management, ad and banner
+ blocking, and many other aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
+ configuration is <filename>default.action</filename>. It is strongly
+ recommended to become familiar with the new actions concept below,
+ before modifying this file.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+<!-- I think it is best to keep this somewhat vague, in case -->
+<!-- the situation changes under our feet. -->
+ Some installers may not automatically start
+ <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
-<!-- ~ End section ~ -->
+ </itemizedlist>
+</para>
+</sect2>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-
-<
sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using <application>Privoxy</application></title>
+<sect2 id="startup">
+<
title>Starting <application>Privoxy</application></title>
<para>
Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
will want to configure your browser(s) to use <application>Privoxy</application>
as a HTTP and HTTPS proxy. The default is localhost for the proxy address,
- and port 8118 (earlier versions used port 800). This is the one required
+ and port 8118 (earlier versions used port 8000). This is the one required
configuration that must be done!
</para>
<para>
After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
- re-reading of all pages and get rid of any ads that may be cached. You
+ re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. You
are now ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
<application>Privoxy</application>.
</para>
</para>
<para>
- For for SuSE: <command>/etc/rc.d/privoxy start</command>
+ For for SuSE: <command>rcprivoxy start</command>
</para>
<para>
<para>
The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
- point, though may be somewhat aggressive in blocking junk. Most of the
- per site configuration is done in the <quote>actions</quote> files. These
- are where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking,
- and other aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There
- are several such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
+ point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
+ <quote>actions</quote> files. These are where various cookie actions are
+ defined, ad and banner blocking, and other aspects of
+ <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several such
+ files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
</para>
<para>
You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites that require persistent
cookies, and add these to <filename>default.action</filename> as needed. By
default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
- session, until you add them to the configuration. If you want the browser to
- handle this instead, you will need to edit
- <filename>default.action</filename> and disable this feature. If you use more
- than one browser, it would make more sense to let
- <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which case, the browser(s)
- should be set to accept all cookies.
+ session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), until you add them to the
+ configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
+ to edit <filename>default.action</filename> and disable this feature. If you
+ use more than one browser, it would make more sense to let
+ <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which case, the
+ browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
+ sites is the popup-killing (through the <literal>+popup</literal> and
+ <literal>+filter{popups}</literal> actions), because your favorite shopping,
+ banking, or leisure site may need popups.
</para>
<para>
- <application>Privoxy</application> is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all 1.1
- features are as yet implemented. If browsers that support HTTP/1.1 (like
- <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.) experience
- problems, you might try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look
- under <literal>Edit -> Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
- Or set the <quote>+downgrade</quote> config option in
- <filename>default.action</filename>.
+ <application>Privoxy</application> is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all of
+ the optional 1.1 features are as yet supported. In the unlikely event that
+ you experience inexplicable problems with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
+ (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
+ try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
+ Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
+ Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade</quote> config option in
+ <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
+ requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
</para>
<para>
preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
be customized. <quote>Actions</quote> (as specified in <filename>default.action</filename>)
can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
- <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>,
+ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
+ (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
and then follow the link to <quote>edit the actions list</quote>.
(This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
</para>
the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
to a given URL. In addition to the <filename>default.action</filename> file
editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
- be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> from this page.
+ be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
</para>
<para>
- If you encounter problems, please verify it is a
- <application>Privoxy</application> bug, by disabling
- <application>Privoxy</application>, and then trying the same page.
- Also, try another browser if possible to eliminate browser or site
- problems. Before reporting it as a bug, see if there is not a configuration
- option that is enabled that is causing the page not to load. You can then add
- an exception for that page or site. For instance, try adding it to the
- <literal>{fragile}</literal> section of <filename>default.action</filename>.
- This will turn off most actions for this site. For more on troubleshooting
- problem sites, see the <ulink
- url="appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</ulink>. If a bug, please report it
- to the developers (see below).
+ If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
+ <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
+ you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
+ based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
+ then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
+ is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
+ again.
</para>
+<para>
+ If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <ulink
+ url="configuration.html#ACTIONSFILE">read more about the actions concept</ulink>
+ or even dive deep into the <ulink url="appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT">Appendix
+ on actions</ulink>.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
+ Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
+ chapter "Contacting the Developers, .." below.
+</para>
+
+</sect2>
-<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<sect2>
<title>Command Line Options</title>
<para>
</para>
<para>
On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
- <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failiure to create or delete the
+ <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
<emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
</para>
<sect2>
<title>Controlling <application>Privoxy</application> with Your Web Browser</title>
<para>
- <application>Privoxy</application> can be reached by the special
- URL <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (or alternately
- <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>),
- which is an internal page. You will see the following section:
+ <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
+ URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
+ (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
+ which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
+ You will see the following section:
</para>
Please choose from the following options:
+ * Privoxy main page
* Show information about the current configuration
* Show the source code version numbers
- * Show the client's request headers.
+ * Show the request headers.
* Show which actions apply to a URL and why
* Toggle Privoxy on or off
* Edit the actions list
<application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
- <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically detect any changes
- to these files.
</para>
<para>
<quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
- have problems with your current actions and filters, or just to test if
-
a site misbehaves, whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
+ have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
+
it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
- to run as a proxy in this case, but all filtering is disabled.
+ to run as a proxy in this case, but all filtering is disabled. There
+ is even a toggle Bookmarklet offered, so that you can toggle
+ <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from your browser.
</para>
<listitem>
<para>
- The <filename>default.action</filename> file is used to define various
- <quote>actions</quote> relating to images, banners, pop-ups, access
- restrictions, banners and cookies. There is a CGI based editor for this
- file that can be accessed via <ulink
- url="http://p.p">http://p.p</ulink>. (Other actions
- files are included as well with differing levels of filtering
+ <filename>default.action</filename> (the actions file) is used to define
+ which of a set of various <quote>actions</quote> relating to images, banners,
+ pop-ups, access restrictions, banners and cookies are to be applied where.
+ There is a web based editor for this file that can be accessed at <ulink
+ url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions/">http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions/</ulink>
+ (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/edit-actions/">http://p.p/edit-actions/</ulink>).
+ (Other actions files are included as well with differing levels of filtering
and blocking, e.g. <filename>basic.action</filename>.)
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
- The <filename>default.filter</filename> file can be used to re-write the raw
+ <filename>default.filter</filename> (the filter file) can be used to re-write the raw
page content, including viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript,
- and whatever else lurks on any given web page.
+ and whatever else lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only
+ pre-defined here; whether to apply them or not is up to the actions file.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
+<para>
+ All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
+ comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
+ through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
+ in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
+ its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
+ valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
+ out" that line.
+</para>
+
<para>
<filename>default.action</filename> and <filename>default.filter</filename>
- can use Perl style regular expressions for maximum flexibility. All files use
- the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a comment. Such
- lines are not processed by <application>Privoxy</application>. After
- making any changes, there is no need to restart
+ can use Perl style regular expressions for maximum flexibility.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ After making any changes, there is no need to restart
<application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
- effect. <application>Privoxy</application> should detect such changes
- automatically.
+ effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
+ automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
+ requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
+ of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
+ must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
</para>
<![%p-not-stable;[
<literal>
<msgtext>
<literallayout>
- <emphasis>blockfile blocklist.ini</emphasis>
+ <emphasis>confdir /etc/privoxy</emphasis>
</literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-<para>
- Indicates that the blockfile is named <quote>blocklist.ini</quote>. (A
- default installation does not use this.)
-</para>
-
-<para>
- A <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> indicates a comment. Any part of a
- line following a <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> is ignored, except if
- the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> is preceded by a
- <quote><literal>\</literal></quote>.
+ </msgtext>
+ </literal>
</para>
<para>
- Thus, by placing a <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> 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 <quote>commenting out</quote> an
- option and can be useful to turn off features: If you comment out the
- <quote>logfile</quote> line, <application>Privoxy</application> will not
- log to a file at all. Watch for the <quote>default:</quote> section in each
- explanation to see what happens if the option is left unset (or commented
- out).
+ Assigns the value <literal>/etc/privoxy</literal> to the option
+ <literal>confdir</literal> and thus indicates that the configuration
+ directory is named <quote>/etc/privoxy/</quote>.
</para>
<para>
- Long lines can be continued on the next line by using a
- <quote><literal>\</literal></quote> as the very last character.
+ All options in the config file except for <literal>confdir</literal> and
+ <literal>logdir</literal> are optional. Watch out in the below description
+ for what happens if you leave them unset.
</para>
<para>
- There are various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> behavior
- that can be tuned.
+ 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).
</para>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<sect3>
-<title>Defining Other Configuration Files</title>
-
-<para>
- <application>Privoxy</application> can use a number of other files to tell it
- what ads to block, what cookies to accept, and perform other functions. This
- section of the configuration file tells <application>Privoxy</application>
- where to find all those other files.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- On <application>Windows</application> and <application>AmigaOS</application>,
- <application>Privoxy</application> looks for these files in the same
- directory as the executable. On Unix and OS/2,
- <application>Privoxy</application> looks for these files in the current
- working directory. In either case, an absolute path name can be used to
- avoid problems.
-</para>
-
-<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, only <filename>confdir/templates</filename> is used for storing HTML
- templates for CGI results.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- The location of the configuration files:
-</para>
+<title>Configuration and Log File Locations</title>
<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>confdir /etc/privoxy</emphasis> # No trailing /, please.
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
+ <application>Privoxy</application> can (and normally does) use a number of
+ other files for additional configuration and logging.
+ This section of the configuration file tells <application>Privoxy</application>
+ where to find those other files.
</para>
-<para>
- The directory where all logging (i.e. <filename>logfile</filename> and
- <filename>jarfile</filename>) takes place. No trailing
- <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please:
-</para>
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>logdir /var/log/privoxy</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
+<sect4><title>confdir</title>
-<para>
- Note that all file specifications below are relative to
- the above two directories!
-</para>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>The directory where the other configuration files are located</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Path name</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>/etc/privoxy (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> <application>Privoxy</application> installation dir (Windows) </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please
+ </para>
+ <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).
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+</sect4>
-<para>
- The <quote>default.action</quote> file contains patterns to specify the
- actions to apply to requests for each site. Default: Cookies to and from all
- destinations are kept only during the current browser session (i.e. they are
- not saved to disk). Pop-ups are disabled for all sites. All sites are
- filtered through selected sections of <quote>default.filter</quote>. No sites
- are blocked. <application>Privoxy</application> displays a checkboard type
- pattern for filtered ads and other images. The syntax of this file is
- explained in detail <link linkend="actionsfile">below</link>. Other
- <quote>actions</quote> files are included, and you are free to use any of
- them. They have varying degrees of aggressiveness.
-</para>
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>actionsfile default.action</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
+<sect4><title>logdir</title>
-<para>
- The <quote>default.filter</quote> file contains content modification rules
- that use <quote>regular expressions</quote>. These rules permit powerful
- changes on the content of Web pages, e.g., you could disable your favorite
- JavaScript annoyances, re-write the actual displayed text, or just have some
- fun replacing <quote>Microsoft</quote> with <quote>MicroSuck</quote> wherever
- it appears on a Web page. Default: whatever the developers are playing with
- :-/
-</para>
+<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)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Path name</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <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><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+</sect4>
-<para>
- Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to slow down
- page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has passed
- the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way since
- the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more noticeable
- on slower connections.
+<sect4><title>actionsfile</title>
-</para>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The actions file to use
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>default.action (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> default.action.txt (Windows)</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ No action is taken at all. Simple neutral proxying.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ There is no point in using <application>Privoxy</application> without
+ an actions file. There are three different actions files included in the
+ distribution, with varying degrees of aggressiveness:
+ <filename>default.action</filename>, <filename>intermediate.action</filename> and
+ <filename>advanced.action</filename>.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+</sect4>
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>filterfile default.filter</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
+<sect4><title>filterfile</title>
-<para>
- The logfile is where all logging and error messages are written. 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>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The filter file to use
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>default.filter (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> default.filter.txt (Windows)</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ No textual content filtering takes place, i.e. all
+ <literal>+filter{<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>}</literal>
+ actions in the actions file are turned off
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The <quote>default.filter</quote> file contains content modification rules
+ that use <quote>regular expressions</quote>. These rules permit powerful
+ changes on the content of Web pages, e.g., you could disable your favorite
+ JavaScript annoyances, re-write the actual displayed text, or just have some
+ fun replacing <quote>Microsoft</quote> with <quote>MicroSuck</quote> wherever
+ it appears on a Web page.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+</sect4>
-<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 Redhat, a <command>logrotate</command>
- script has been included.
-</para>
+<sect4><title>logfile</title>
-<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>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The log file to use
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>File name, relative to <literal>logdir</literal></para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>logfile (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> privoxy.log (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>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The windows version will additionally log to the console.
+ </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) 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 Redhat, 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>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+</sect4>
-<para>
- Default: Log to the a file named <filename>logfile</filename>.
- Comment out to disable logging.
-</para>
+<sect4><title>jarfile</title>
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>logfile logfile</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-<para>
- The <quote>jarfile</quote> defines where
- <application>Privoxy</application> stores the cookies it intercepts. Note
- that if you use a <quote>jarfile</quote>, it may grow quite large. Default:
- Don't store intercepted cookies.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>#jarfile jarfile</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-<para>
- If you specify a <quote>trustfile</quote>,
- <application>Privoxy</application> will only allow access to sites that
- are named in the trustfile. You can also mark sites as trusted referrers,
- with the effect that access to untrusted sites will be granted, if a link
- from a trusted referrer was used. The link target will then be added to the
- <quote>trustfile</quote>. This is a very restrictive feature that typical
- users most probably want to leave disabled. Default: Disabled, don't use the
- trust mechanism.
-</para>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The file to store intercepted cookies in
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>File name, relative to <literal>logdir</literal></para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>jarfile (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> privoxy.jar (Windows)</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Intercepted cookies are not stored at all.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The jarfile may grow to ridiculous sizes over time.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+</sect4>
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>#trustfile trust</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-<para>
- If you use the trust mechanism, it is a good idea to write up some on-line
- documentation about your blocking policy and to specify the URL(s) here. They
- will appear on the page that your users receive when they try to access
- untrusted content. Use multiple times for multiple URLs. Default: Don't
- display links on the <quote>untrusted</quote> info page.
-</para>
+<sect4><title>trustfile</title>
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>trust-info-url http://www.example.com/why_we_block.html</emphasis>
- <emphasis>trust-info-url http://www.example.com/what_we_allow.html</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The trust file to use
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></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>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The whole trust mechanism is turned off.
+ </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 named in the trustfile.
+ You can also mark sites as trusted referrers (with <literal>+</literal>), with
+ the effect that access to untrusted sites will be granted, if a link from a
+ trusted referrer was used.
+ The link target will then be added to the <quote>trustfile</quote>.
+ Possible applications include limiting Internet access for children.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If you use <literal>+</literal> operator in the trust file, it may grow considerably over time.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+</sect4>
</sect3>
<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<sect3>
-<title>Other Configuration Options</title>
+<title>Local Set-up Documentation</title>
-<para>
- This part of the configuration file contains options that control how
- <application>Privoxy</application> operates.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <quote>Admin-address</quote> should be set to the email address of the proxy
- administrator. It is used in many of the proxy-generated pages. Default:
- fill@me.in.please.
-</para>
+ <para>
+ If you intend to operate <application>Privoxy</application> for more users
+ that 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>
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>#admin-address fill@me.in.please</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
+<sect4><title>trust-info-url</title>
-<para>
- <quote>Proxy-info-url</quote> can be set to a URL that contains more info
- about this <application>Privoxy</application> installation, it's
- configuration and policies. It is used in many of the proxy-generated pages
- and its use is highly recommended in multi-user installations, since your
- users will want to know why certain content is blocked or modified. Default:
- Don't show a link to on-line documentation.
-</para>
+<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.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>URL</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Two example URL are provided</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ No links are displayed on the "untrusted" error page.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The value of this option only matters if the experimental trust mechanism has been
+ activated. (See <literal>trustfile</literal> above.)
+ </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>
+</sect4>
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>proxy-info-url http://www.example.com/proxy.html</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
+<sect4><title>admin-address</title>
-<para>
- <quote>Listen-address</quote> specifies the address and port where
- <application>Privoxy</application> will listen for connections from your
- Web browser. The default is to listen on the localhost port 8118, and
- this is suitable for most users. (In your web browser, under proxy
- configuration, list the proxy server as <quote>localhost</quote> and the
- port as <quote>8118</quote>).
-</para>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ An email address to reach the proxy administrator.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Email address</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ No email address is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
+ </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>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+</sect4>
+
+<sect4><title>proxy-info-url</title>
+
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ 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>URL</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></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.
+ </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>
+ This URL shouldn't be blocked ;-)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+</sect4>
-<para>
- If you already have another service running on port 8118, or if you want to
- serve requests from other machines (e.g. on your local network) as well, you
- will need to override the default. The syntax is
- <quote>listen-address [<ip-address>]:<port></quote>. 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 access control lists (acl's) (see
- <quote>aclfile</quote> above), or a firewall.
-</para>
+</sect3>
+<!-- ~ End section ~ -->
-<para>
- For example, suppose you are running <application>Privoxy</application> on
- a machine which has the address 192.168.0.1 on your local private network
- (192.168.0.0) and has another outside connection with a different address.
- You want it to serve requests from inside only:
-</para>
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>listen-address 192.168.0.1:8118</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
+<sect3>
+<title>Debugging</title>
-<para>
- If you want it to listen on all addresses (including the outside
- connection):
-</para>
+ <para>
+ These options are mainly useful when tracing a problem.
+ Note that you might also want to invoke
+ <application>Privoxy</application> with the <literal>--no-daemon</literal>
+ command line option when debugging.
+ </para>
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>listen-address :8118</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
+<sect4><title>debug</title>
-<para>
- If you do this, consider using ACLs (see <quote>aclfile</quote> above). Note:
- you will need to point your browser(s) to the address and port that you have
- configured here. Default: localhost:8118 (127.0.0.1:8118).
-</para>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Key values that determine what information gets logged.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Integer values</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>12289 (i.e.: URLs plus informational and warning messages)</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Nothing gets logged.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The available debug levels are:
+ </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 4096 # Startup banner and warnings.
+ debug 8192 # Non-fatal errors
+ </programlisting>
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ To select multiple debug levels, you can either add them or use
+ multiple <literal>debug</literal> lines.
+ </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).
+ <!-- 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.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If you want to use CLF (Common Log Format), you should set <quote>debug
+ 512</quote> <emphasis>ONLY</emphasis> and not enable anything else.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+</sect4>
-<para>
- The debug option sets the level of debugging information to log in the
- logfile (and to the console in the Windows version). A debug level of 1 is
- informative because it will show you each request as it happens. Higher
- levels of debug are probably only of interest to developers.
-</para>
+<sect4><title>single-threaded</title>
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- debug 1 # GPC = show each GET/POST/CONNECT request
- debug 2 # CONN = show each connection status
- debug 4 # IO = show I/O status
- debug 8 # HDR = show header parsing
- debug 16 # LOG = log all data into the logfile
- debug 32 # FRC = debug force feature
- debug 64 # REF = debug regular expression filter
- debug 128 # = debug fast redirects
- debug 256 # = debug GIF de-animation
- debug 512 # CLF = Common Log Format
- debug 1024 # = debug kill pop-ups
- debug 4096 # INFO = Startup banner and warnings.
- debug 8192 # ERROR = Non-fatal errors
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Whether to run only one server thread
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para><emphasis>None</emphasis></para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Multi-threaded (or, where unavailable: forked) operation, i.e. the ability to
+ serve multiple requests simultaneously.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <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>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+</sect4>
-<![%p-not-stable;[
-<para>
- It is <emphasis>highly recommended</emphasis> that you enable ERROR
- reporting (debug 8192), at least until v3.0 is released.
-</para>
-]]>
+</sect3>
-<para>
- The reporting of FATAL errors (i.e. ones which crash
- <application>Privoxy</application>) is always on and cannot be disabled.
-</para>
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<para>
- If you want to use CLF (Common Log Format), you should set <quote>debug
- 512</quote> ONLY, do not enable anything else.
-</para>
+<sect3>
+<title>Access Control and Security</title>
-<para>
- Multiple <quote>debug</quote> directives, are OK - they're logical-OR'd
- together.
-</para>
+ This section of the config file controls the security-relevant aspects
+ of <application>Privoxy</application>'s configuration.
+ </para>
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>debug 15 # same as setting the first 4 listed above</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
+<sect4><title>listen-address</title>
-<para>
- Default:
-</para>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The IP address and TCP port on which <application>Privoxy</application> will
+ listen for client requests.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>[<replaceable class="parameter">IP-Address</replaceable>]:<replaceable class="parameter">Port</replaceable></para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>localhost:8118</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Bind to localhost (127.0.0.1), 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>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ You will need to configure your browser(s) to this proxy address and port.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ If you already have another service running on port 8118, or if you want to
+ serve requests from other machines (e.g. on your local network) as well, you
+ 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 access control lists (acl's)
+ (see <quote>ACLs</quote> below), or a firewall.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Example:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Suppose you are running <application>Privoxy</application> on
+ a machine which has the address 192.168.0.1 on your local private network
+ (192.168.0.0) and has another outside connection with a different address.
+ You want it to serve requests from inside only:
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <programlisting>
+ listen-address 192.168.0.1:8118
+ </programlisting>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+</sect4>
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>debug 1 # URLs</emphasis>
- <emphasis>debug 4096 # Info</emphasis>
- <emphasis>debug 8192 # Errors - *we highly recommended enabling this*</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
+<sect4><title>toggle</title>
-<para>
- <application>Privoxy</application> normally uses
- <quote>multi-threading</quote>, a software technique that permits it to
- handle many different requests simultaneously. In some cases you may wish to
- disable this -- particularly if you're trying to debug a problem. The
- <quote>single-threaded</quote> option forces
- <application>Privoxy</application> to handle requests sequentially.
- Default: Multi-threaded mode.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>#single-threaded</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <quote>toggle</quote> allows you to temporarily disable all
- <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering. Just set <quote>toggle
- 0</quote>.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- The Windows version of <application>Privoxy</application> puts an icon in
- the system tray, which also allows you to change this option. If you
- right-click on that icon (or select the <quote>Options</quote> menu), one
- choice is <quote>Enable</quote>. Clicking on enable toggles
- <application>Privoxy</application> on and off. This is useful if you want
- to temporarily disable <application>Privoxy</application>, e.g., to access
- a site that requires cookies which you would otherwise have blocked. This can also
- be toggled via a web browser at the <application>Privoxy</application>
- internal address of <ulink url="http://p.p">http://p.p</ulink> on
- any platform.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <quote>toggle 1</quote> means <application>Privoxy</application> runs
- normally, <quote>toggle 0</quote> means that
- <application>Privoxy</application> becomes a non-anonymizing non-blocking
- proxy. Default: 1 (on).
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>toggle 1</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-<para>
- For content filtering, i.e. the <quote>+filter</quote> and
- <quote>+deanimate-gif</quote> actions, it is necessary that
- <application>Privoxy</application> buffers the entire document body.
- This can be potentially dangerous, since a server could just keep sending
- data indefinitely and wait for your RAM to exhaust. With nasty consequences.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- The <application>buffer-limit</application> option lets you set the maximum
- size in Kbytes that each buffer may use. When the documents buffer exceeds
- this size, it is flushed to the client unfiltered and no further attempt to
- filter the rest of it is made. Remember that there may multiple threads
- running, which might require increasing the <quote>buffer-limit</quote>
- Kbytes <emphasis>each</emphasis>, unless you have enabled
- <quote>single-threaded</quote> above.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>buffer-limit 4069</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-<para>
- To enable the web-based <filename>default.action</filename> file editor set
- <application>enable-edit-actions</application> to 1, or 0 to disable. Note
- that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
- support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect. This
- internal page can be reached at <ulink
- url="http://p.p">http://p.p</ulink>.
- </para>
-
-<para>
- Security note: If this is enabled, anyone who can use the proxy
- can edit the actions file, and their changes will affect all users.
- For shared proxies, you probably want to disable this. Default: enabled.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>enable-edit-actions 1</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-<para>
- Allow <application>Privoxy</application> to be toggled on and off
- remotely, using your web browser. Set <quote>enable-remote-toggle</quote>to
- 1 to enable, and 0 to disable. Note that you must have compiled
- <application>Privoxy</application> with support for this feature,
- otherwise this option has no effect.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- Security note: If this is enabled, anyone who can use the proxy can toggle
- it on or off (see <ulink url="http://p.p">http://p.p</ulink>), and
- their changes will affect all users. For shared proxies, you probably want to
- disable this. Default: enabled.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>enable-remote-toggle 1</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-</sect3>
-
-<!-- ~ End section ~ -->
-
-
-<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-
-<sect3>
-<title>Access Control List (ACL)</title>
-<para>
- Access controls are included at the request of some ISPs and systems
- administrators, and are not usually needed by individual users. Please note
- 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.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- If no access settings are specified, the proxy talks to anyone that
- connects. If any access settings file are specified, then the proxy
- talks only to IP addresses permitted somewhere in this file and not
- denied later in this file.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- Summary -- if using an ACL:
-</para>
-
- <simplelist>
- <member>
- Client must have permission to receive service.
- </member>
- </simplelist>
- <simplelist>
- <member>
- LAST match in ACL wins.
- </member>
- </simplelist>
- <simplelist>
- <member>
- Default behavior is to deny service.
- </member>
- </simplelist>
-
-<para>
- The syntax for an entry in the Access Control List is:
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- ACTION SRC_ADDR[/SRC_MASKLEN] [ DST_ADDR[/DST_MASKLEN] ]
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-<para>
- Where the individual fields are:
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>ACTION</emphasis> = <quote>permit-access</quote> or <quote>deny-access</quote>
-
- <emphasis>SRC_ADDR</emphasis> = client hostname or dotted IP address
- <emphasis>SRC_MASKLEN</emphasis> = number of bits in the subnet mask for the source
-
- <emphasis>DST_ADDR</emphasis> = server or forwarder hostname or dotted IP address
- <emphasis>DST_MASKLEN</emphasis> = number of bits in the subnet mask for the target
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-
-<para>
- The field separator (FS) is whitespace (space or tab).
-</para>
-
-<para>
- IMPORTANT NOTE: If <application>Privoxy</application> is using a
- forwarder (see below) or a gateway for a particular destination URL, the
- <literal>DST_ADDR</literal> that is examined is the address of the forwarder
- or the gateway and <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the address of the ultimate
- target. This is necessary because it may be impossible for the local
- <application>Privoxy</application> to determine the address of the
- ultimate target (that's often what gateways are used for).
-</para>
-
-<para>
- Here are a few examples to show how the ACL features work:
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <quote>localhost</quote> is OK -- no DST_ADDR implies that
- <emphasis>ALL</emphasis> destination addresses are OK:
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>permit-access localhost</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-<para>
- A silly example to illustrate permitting any host on the class-C subnet with
- <application>Privoxy</application> to go anywhere:
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>permit-access www.privoxy.com/24</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-<para>
- Except deny one particular IP address from using it at all:
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>deny-access ident.privoxy.com</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-<para>
- You can also specify an explicit network address and subnet mask.
- Explicit addresses do not have to be resolved to be used.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>permit-access 207.153.200.0/24</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-<para>
- A subnet mask of 0 matches anything, so the next line permits everyone.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>permit-access 0.0.0.0/0</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-<para>
- Note, you <emphasis>cannot</emphasis> say:
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>permit-access .org</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-<para>
- to allow all *.org domains. Every IP address listed must resolve fully.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- An ISP may want to provide a <application>Privoxy</application> that is
- accessible by <quote>the world</quote> and yet restrict use of some of their
- private content to hosts on its internal network (i.e. its own subscribers).
- Say, for instance the ISP owns the Class-B IP address block 123.124.0.0 (a 16
- bit netmask). This is how they could do it:
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>permit-access 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0</emphasis> # other clients can go anywhere
- # with the following exceptions:
-
- <emphasis>deny-access</emphasis> 0.0.0.0/0 123.124.0.0/16 # block all external requests for
- # sites on the ISP's network
-
- <emphasis>permit 0.0.0.0/0 www.my_isp.com</emphasis> # except for the ISP's main
- # web site
-
- <emphasis>permit 123.124.0.0/16 0.0.0.0/0</emphasis> # the ISP's clients can go
- # anywhere
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-<para>
- Note that if some hostnames are listed with multiple IP addresses,
- the primary value returned by DNS (via gethostbyname()) is used. Default:
- Anyone can access the proxy.
-</para>
-
-</sect3>
-
-<!-- ~ End section ~ -->
-
-
-<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-
-<sect3 id="forwarding">
-<title>Forwarding</title>
-
-<para>
- This feature allows chaining of HTTP requests via multiple proxies.
- It can be used to better protect privacy and confidentiality when
- accessing specific domains by routing requests to those domains
- to a special purpose filtering proxy such as lpwa.com. Or to use
- a caching proxy to speed up browsing.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- It can also be used in an environment with multiple networks to route
- requests via multiple gateways allowing transparent access to multiple
- networks without having to modify browser configurations.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- Also specified here are SOCKS proxies. <application>Privoxy</application>
- SOCKS 4 and SOCKS 4A. The difference is that SOCKS 4A will resolve the target
- hostname using DNS on the SOCKS server, not our local DNS client.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- The syntax of each line is:
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>forward target_domain[:port] http_proxy_host[:port]</emphasis>
- <emphasis>forward-socks4 target_domain[:port] socks_proxy_host[:port] http_proxy_host[:port]</emphasis>
- <emphasis>forward-socks4a target_domain[:port] socks_proxy_host[:port] http_proxy_host[:port]</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-<para>
- If http_proxy_host is <quote>.</quote>, then requests are not forwarded to a
- HTTP proxy but are made directly to the web servers.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- Lines are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- There is an implicit line equivalent to the following, which specifies that
- anything not finding a match on the list is to go out without forwarding
- or gateway protocol, like so:
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>forward .* . </emphasis># implicit
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-<para>
- In the following common configuration, everything goes to Lucent's LPWA,
- except SSL on port 443 (which it doesn't handle):
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>forward .* lpwa.com:8000</emphasis>
- <emphasis>forward :443 .</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Initial state of "toggle" status
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>1 or 0</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>1</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Act as if toggled on
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <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. 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> then via editing the <filename>conf</filename> file.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ The windows version will only display the toggle icon in the system tray
+ if this option is present.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+</sect4>
-<para>
-<!--
- See the FAQ for instructions on how to automate the login procedure for LPWA.
--->
- Some users have reported difficulties related to LPWA's use of
- <quote>.</quote> as the last element of the domain, and have said that this
- can be fixed with this:
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>forward lpwa. lpwa.com:8000</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-
-<para>
- (NOTE: the syntax for specifying target_domain has changed since the
- previous paragraph was written -- it will not work now. More information
- is welcome.)
-</para>
-<para>
- In this fictitious example, everything goes via an ISP's caching proxy,
- except requests to that ISP:
-</para>
+<sect4><title>enable-remote-toggle</title>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Whether or not the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">web-based toggle
+ feature</ulink> may be used
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>0 or 1</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>1</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The web-based toggle feature is disabled.
+ </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.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ For the time being, 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 you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
+ support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+</sect4>
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>forward .* caching.myisp.net:8000</emphasis>
- <emphasis>forward myisp.net .</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-<para>
- For the @home network, we're told the forwarding configuration is this:
-</para>
+<sect4><title>enable-edit-actions</title>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Whether or not the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions">web-based actions
+ file editor</ulink> may be used
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>0 or 1</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>1</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The web-based actions file editor is disabled.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ For the time being, 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.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Note that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
+ support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+</sect4>
+
+<sect4><title>ACLs: permit-access and deny-access</title>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Who can access what.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <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>]]
+ </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_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>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Don't restrict access further than implied by <literal>listen-address</literal>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Access controls are included at the request of ISPs and systems
+ administrators, and <emphasis>are not usually needed by individual users</emphasis>.
+ For a typical home user, it will normally suffice to ensure that
+ <application>Privoxy</application> only listens on the localhost or internal (home)
+ network address by means of the <literal>listen-address</literal> 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.
+ </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
+ 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>
+ <para>
+ If <application>Privoxy</application> is using a forwarder (see <literal>forward</literal> below)
+ for a particular destination URL, the <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable>
+ that is examined is the address of the forwarder and <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the address
+ of the ultimate target. This is necessary because it may be impossible for the local
+ <application>Privoxy</application> to determine the IP address of the
+ ultimate target (that's often what gateways are used for).
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ You should prefer using IP addresses over DNS names, because the address lookups take
+ time. All DNS names must resolve! You can <emphasis>not</emphasis> use domain patterns
+ 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>
+ 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.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Examples:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Explicitly define the default behavior if no ACL and
+ <literal>listen-address</literal> are set: <quote>localhost</quote>
+ is OK. The absence of a <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable> implies that
+ <emphasis>all</emphasis> destination addresses are OK:
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <screen>
+ permit-access localhost
+ </screen>
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Allow any host on the same class C subnet as www.privoxy.org access to
+ nothing but www.example.com:
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <screen>
+ permit-access www.privoxy.org/24 www.example.com/32
+ </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:
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <screen>
+ permit-access 192.168.45.64/26
+ deny-access 192.168.45.73 www.dirty-stuff.example.com
+ </screen>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+</sect4>
+<sect4><title>buffer-limit</title>
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>forward .* proxy:8080</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Maximum size of the buffer for content filtering.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Size in Kbytes</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>4096</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Use a 4MB (4096 KB) limit.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ For content filtering, i.e. the <literal>+filter</literal> and
+ <literal>+deanimate-gif</literal> actions, it is necessary that
+ <application>Privoxy</application> buffers the entire document body.
+ This can be potentially dangerous, since a server could just keep sending
+ data indefinitely and wait for your RAM to exhaust -- with nasty consequences.
+ Hence this option.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ When a document buffer size reaches the <literal>buffer-limit</literal>, it is
+ flushed to the client unfiltered and no further attempt to
+ filter the rest of the document is made. Remember that there may be multiple threads
+ running, which might require up to <literal>buffer-limit</literal> Kbytes
+ <emphasis>each</emphasis>, unless you have enabled <quote>single-threaded</quote>
+ above.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+</sect4>
-<para>
- Also, we're told they insist on getting cookies and JavaScript, so you should
- allow cookies from home.com. We consider JavaScript a potential security risk.
- Java need not be enabled.
-</para>
+</sect3>
-<para>
- In this example direct connections are made to all <quote>internal</quote>
- domains, but everything else goes through Lucent's LPWA by way of the
- company's SOCKS gateway to the Internet.
-</para>
+<!-- ~ End section ~ -->
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>forward-socks4 .* lpwa.com:8000 firewall.my_company.com:1080</emphasis>
- <emphasis>forward my_company.com .</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
-<para>
- This is how you could set up a site that always uses SOCKS but no forwarders:
-</para>
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
-<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>forward-socks4a .* . firewall.my_company.com:1080</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
-</para>
+<sect3 id="forwarding">
+<title>Forwarding</title>
<para>
- An advanced example for network administrators:
+ 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>
- If you have links to multiple ISPs that provide various special content to
- their subscribers, you can configure forwarding to pass requests to the
- specific host that's connected to that ISP so that everybody can see all
- of the content on all of the ISPs.
+ Also specified here are SOCKS proxies. <application>Privoxy</application>
+ supports the SOCKS 4 and SOCKS 4A protocols.
</para>
-<para>
- This is a bit tricky, but here's an example:
-</para>
+<sect4><title>forward</title>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ To which parent HTTP proxy specific requests should be routed.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
+ <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Where <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable> is a domain name pattern (see the
+ chapter on domain matching in the actions file),
+ <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is the address of the parent HTTP proxy
+ as an IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or as a valid DNS name (or <quote>.</quote> to denote
+ <quote>no forwarding</quote>, and the optional
+ <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> parameters are TCP ports, i.e. integer
+ values from 1 to 64535
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Don't use parent HTTP proxies.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ 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>
+ Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Examples:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Everything goes to an example anonymizing proxy, except SSL on port 443 (which it doesn't handle):
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <screen>
+ forward .* anon-proxy.example.org:8080
+ forward :443 .
+ </screen>
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Everything goes to our example ISP's caching proxy, except for requests
+ to that ISP's sites:
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <screen>
+ forward .*. caching-proxy.example-isp.net:8000
+ forward .example-isp.net .
+ </screen>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+</sect4>
+
+<sect4><title>forward-socks4 and forward-socks4a</title>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Specifies:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Through which SOCKS proxy (and to which parent HTTP proxy) specific requests should be routed.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Type of value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
+ <replaceable class="parameter">socks_proxy</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
+ <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Where <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable> is a domain name pattern (see the
+ chapter on domain matching in the actions file),
+ <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
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Default value:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Effect if unset:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Don't use SOCKS proxies.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Notes:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ The difference between <literal>forward-socks4</literal> and <literal>forward-socks4a</literal>
+ 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>
+ 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
+ a SOCKS proxy.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>Examples:</term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ From the company example.com, direct connections are made to all
+ <quote>internal</quote> domains, but everything outbound goes through
+ their ISP's proxy by way of example.com's corporate SOCKS 4A gateway to
+ the Internet.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <screen>
+ forward-socks4a .*. socks-gw.example.com:1080 www-cache.example-isp.net:8080
+ forward .example.com .
+ </screen>
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ A rule that uses a SOCKS 4 gateway for all destinations but no HTTP parent looks like this:
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ <screen>
+ forward-socks4 .*. socks-gw.example.com:1080 .
+ </screen>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+</sect4>
+<sect4><title>Advanced Forwarding Examples</title>
<para>
- host-a has a PPP connection to isp-a.com. And host-b has a PPP connection to
- isp-b.com. host-a can run a <application>Privoxy</application> proxy with
- forwarding like this:
+ If you have links to multiple ISPs that provide various special content
+ only to their subscribers, you can configure multiple <application>Privoxies</application>
+ which have connections to the respective ISPs to act as forwarders to each other, so that
+ <emphasis>your</emphasis> users can see the internal content of all ISPs.
</para>
<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>forward .* .</emphasis>
- <emphasis>forward isp-b.com host-b:8118</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
+ 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
+ configuration can look like this:
</para>
<para>
- host-b can run a <application>Privoxy</application> proxy with forwarding
- like this:
+ host-a:
</para>
<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>forward .* .</emphasis>
- <emphasis>forward isp-a.com host-a:8118</emphasis>
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
+ <screen>
+ forward .*. .
+ forward .isp-b.net host-b:8118
+ </screen>
</para>
<para>
- Now, <emphasis>anyone</emphasis> on the Internet (including users on host-a
- and host-b) can set their browser's proxy to <emphasis>either</emphasis>
- host-a or host-b and be able to browse the content on isp-a or isp-b.
+ host-b:
</para>
<para>
- Here's another practical example, for University of Kent at
- Canterbury students with a network connection in their room, who
- need to use the University's Squid web cache.
+ <screen>
+ forward .*. .
+ forward .isp-a.net host-a:8118
+ </screen>
</para>
<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- <emphasis>forward *. ssbcache.ukc.ac.uk:3128</emphasis> # Use the proxy, except for:
- <emphasis>forward .ukc.ac.uk . </emphasis> # Anything on the same domain as us
- <emphasis>forward * . </emphasis> # Host with no domain specified
- <emphasis>forward 129.12.*.* . </emphasis> # A dotted IP on our /16 network.
- <emphasis>forward 127.*.*.* . </emphasis> # Loopback address
- <emphasis>forward localhost.localdomain . </emphasis> # Loopback address
- <emphasis>forward www.ukc.mirror.ac.uk . </emphasis> # Specific host
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
+ Now, your users can set their browser's proxy to use either
+ host-a or host-b and be able to browse the internal content
+ of both isp-a and isp-b.
</para>
<para>
</para>
<para>
-Your squid configuration could then look like this (assuming that the IP
-address of the box is <literal>192.168.0.1</literal> ):
+ Assuming that <application>Privoxy</application> and <application>squid</application>
+ run on the same box, your squid configuration could then look like this:
</para>
<para>
- <literal>
- <msgtext>
- <literallayout>
- # Define Privoxy as parent cache
- <!-- per feedback from user...
- cache_peer 127.0.0.1 8118 parent 0 no-query
- -->
- cache_peer 192.168.0.1 parent 8118 0 no-query
-
- # don't listen to the whole world
- http_port 192.168.0.1:3128
-
- # define the local lan
- acl mylocallan src 192.168.0.1-192.168.0.5/255.255.255.255
+ <screen>
+ # Define Privoxy as parent proxy (without ICP)
+ cache_peer 127.0.0.1 parent 8118 7 no-query
- # grant access for http to local lan
- http_access allow mylocallan
-
# Define ACL for protocol FTP
- acl FTP proto FTP
-
- # Do not forward ACL FTP to privoxy
- always_direct allow FTP
+ acl ftp proto FTP
- # Do not forward ACL CONNECT (https) to privoxy
- always_direct allow CONNECT
+ # Do not forward FTP requests to Privoxy
+ always_direct allow ftp
- # Forward the rest to privoxy
+ # Forward all the rest to Privoxy
never_direct allow all
- </literallayout>
- </msgtext>
- </literal>
+ </screen>
</para>
+<para>
+ You would then need to change your browser's proxy settings to <application>squid</application>'s address and port.
+ Squid normally uses port 3128. If unsure consult <literal>http_port</literal> in <filename>squid.conf</filename>.
+</para>
+
+</sect4>
+
</sect3>
<!-- ~ End section ~ -->
<title>The Actions File</title>
<para>
- The <quote>default.action</quote> file (formerly
+ The actions file (<filename>default.action</filename>, formerly:
<filename>actionsfile</filename> or <filename>ijb.action</filename>) is used
- to define what actions <application>Privoxy</application> takes, and thus
- determines how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content
- and transactions are handled. These can be accepted or rejected for all
- sites, or just those sites you choose. See below for a complete list of
- actions.
+ to define what actions <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which
+ URLs, and thus determines how ad images, cookies and various other aspects
+ of HTTP content and transactions are handled on which sites (or even parts
+ thereof).
</para>
+
<para>
Anything you want can blocked, including ads, banners, or just some obnoxious
URL that you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted or rejected, or
- accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not written to disk).
- Changes to <filename>default.action</filename> should be immediately visible
- to <application>Privoxy</application> without the need to restart.
+ accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not written to disk),
+ content can be modified, JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking fooled, and much more.
+ See below for a complete list of available actions.
</para>
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect3>
+<title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
<para>
- Note that some sites may misbehave, or possibly not work at all with some
- actions. This may require some tinkering with the rules to get the most
- mileage of <application>Privoxy's</application> features, and still be
- able to see and enjoy just what you want to. There is no general rule of
- thumb on these things. There just are too many variables, and sites are
- always changing.
-
+ Note that some actions like cookie suppression or script disabling may
+ render some sites unusable, which rely on these techniques to work properly.
+ Finding the right mix of actions is not easy and certainly a matter of personal
+ taste. In general, it can be said that the more <quote>aggressive</quote>
+ your default settings (in the top section of the actions file) are,
+ the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you will have to
+ make later. If, for example, you want to kill popup windows per default, you'll
+ have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you regularly use
+ and that require popups for actually useful content, like maybe your bank,
+ favorite shop, or newspaper.
</para>
<para>
- The easiest way to edit the <quote>actions</quote> file is with a browser by
- loading <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>, and then select
- <quote>Edit Actions List</quote>. A text editor can also be used.
+ We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
+ distribution actions file. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
+ things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
+ Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter).
</para>
+</sect3>
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect3>
+<title>How to Edit</title>
<para>
- To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
- compared to all patterns in this file. Every time it matches, the list of
- applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated. You can trace
- this process by visiting <ulink
- url="http://p.p/show-url-info">http://p.p/show-url-info</ulink>.
+ The easiest way to edit the <quote>actions</quote> file is with a browser by
+ using our browser-based editor, which is available at <ulink
+ url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions">http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions</ulink>.
</para>
-
<para>
- There are four types of lines in this file: comments (begin with a
- <quote>#</quote> character), actions, aliases and patterns, all of which are
- explained below, as well as the configuration file syntax that
- <application>Privoxy</application> understands.
-
+ If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
+ <filename>default.action</filename> file.
</para>
+</sect3>
-<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
<sect3>
-<title>URL Domain and Path Syntax</title>
+<title>How Actions are Applied to URLs</title>
<para>
- Generally, a pattern has the form <domain>/<path>, where both the
- <domain> and <path> part are optional. If you only specify a
- domain part, the <quote>/</quote> can be left out:
+ The actions file is divided into sections. There are special sections,
+ like the alias sections which will be discussed later. For now let's
+ concentrate on regular sections: They have a heading line (often split
+ up to multiple lines for readability) which consist of a list of actions,
+ separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces. Below that, there
+ is a list of URL patterns, each on a separate line.
</para>
<para>
- <emphasis>www.example.com</emphasis> - is a domain only pattern and will match any request to
- <quote>www.example.com</quote>.
+ To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
+ compared to all patterns in this file. Every time it matches, the list of
+ applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated, using the heading
+ of the section in which the pattern is located. If multiple matches for
+ the same URL set the same action differently, the last match wins.
</para>
<para>
- <emphasis>www.example.com/</emphasis> - means exactly the same.
+ You can trace this process by visiting <ulink
+ url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
</para>
<para>
- <emphasis>www.example.com/index.html</emphasis> - matches only the single
- document <quote>/index.html</quote> on <quote>www.example.com</quote>.
+ More detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
+ Anatomy of an Action</link>.
</para>
+</sect3>
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect3>
+<title>Patterns</title>
<para>
- <emphasis>/index.html</emphasis> - matches the document <quote>/index.html</quote>,
- regardless of the domain. So would match any page named <quote>index.html</quote>
- on any site.
+ Generally, a pattern has the form <literal><domain>/<path></literal>,
+ where both the <literal><domain></literal> and <literal><path></literal>
+ are optional. (This is why the pattern <literal>/</literal> matches all URLs).
</para>
-<para>
- <emphasis>index.html</emphasis> - matches nothing, since it would be
- interpreted as a domain name and there is no top-level domain called
- <quote>.html</quote>.
-</para>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
+ regardless of which document on that server is requested.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
+ be omitted.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
+ on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>/index.html</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
+ i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
+ there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
+
+<sect4><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
<para>
The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
For example:
</para>
-<para>
- <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis> - matches any domain or sub-domain that
- <emphasis>ENDS</emphasis> in <quote>.example.com</quote>.
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <emphasis>www.</emphasis> - matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
- <quote>www</quote>.
-</para>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ matches any domain that <emphasis>ENDS</emphasis> in
+ <literal>.example.com</literal>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
+ <literal>www.</literal>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>
+ (Correctly speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as a domain.)
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
<para>
Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
themselves. They work pretty similar to shell wild-cards: <quote>*</quote>
stands for zero or more arbitrary characters, <quote>?</quote> stands for
- any single character. And you can define character classes in square
- brackets and they can be freely mixed:
+ any single character, you can define character classes in square
+ brackets and all of that can be freely mixed:
</para>
-<para>
- <emphasis>ad*.example.com</emphasis> - matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
- <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>.
-</para>
+<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
+ <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ matches all of the above, and then some.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
+ <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
+ <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
+ <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
+ <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+</variablelist>
-<para>
- <emphasis>*ad*.example.com</emphasis> - matches all of the above, and then some.
-</para>
+</sect4>
-<para>
- <emphasis>.?pix.com</emphasis> - matches <quote>www.ipix.com</quote>,
- <quote>pictures.epix.com</quote>, <quote>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</quote>, etc.
-</para>
+<sect4><title>The Path Pattern</title>
<para>
- <emphasis>www[1-9a-ez].example.com</emphasis> - matches <quote>www1.example.com</quote>,
- <quote>www4.example.com</quote>, <quote>wwwd.example.com</quote>,
- <quote>wwwz.example.com</quote>, etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
- <quote>wwww.example.com</quote>.
+ <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl compatible regular expressions
+ (through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> library) for
+ matching the path.
</para>
<para>
- If <application>Privoxy</application> was compiled with
- <quote>pcre</quote> support (the default), Perl compatible regular expressions
- can be used. These are more flexible and powerful than other types
- of <quote>regular expressions</quote>. See the <filename>pcre/docs/</filename> directory or <quote>man
- perlre</quote> (also available on <ulink
- url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>)
- for details. A brief discussion of regular expressions is in the
- <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link>. For instance:
+ There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
+ expressions, and full (very technical) documentation on PCRE regex syntax is available on-line
+ at <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/man.txt">http://www.pcre.org/man.txt</ulink>.
+ You might also find the Perl man page on regular expressions (<literal>man perlre</literal>)
+ useful, which is available on-line at <ulink
+ url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>.
</para>
<para>
- <emphasis>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.jpe?g</emphasis> - would match a URL from any
- domain, with any path that includes <quote>advert</quote> followed
- immediately by one or more digits, then a <quote>.</quote> and ending in
- either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>. So we match
- <quote>example.com/ads/advert2.jpg</quote>, and
- <quote>www.example.com/ads/banners/advert39.jpeg</quote>, but not
- <quote>www.example.com/ads/banners/advert39.gif</quote> (no gifs in the
- example pattern).
+ Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
+ i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote>.
</para>
<para>
- Please note that matching in the path is case
+ Please also note that matching in the path is case
<emphasis>INSENSITIVE</emphasis> by default, but you can switch to case
sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
<quote>(?-i)</quote> switch:
-</para>
-
-<para>
- <emphasis>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</emphasis> - will match only
- documents whose path starts with <quote>PaTtErN</quote> in
+ <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match only
+ documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
<emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
</para>
+</sect4>
</sect3>
</simplelist>
<simplelist>
<member>
- <emphasis>no-poups</emphasis>: Kill all popups in JS and HTML
+ <emphasis>content-cookies</emphasis>: Kill cookies that come in the HTML or JS content
+ </member>
+ </simplelist>
+ <simplelist>
+ <member>
+ <emphasis>popups</emphasis>: Kill all popups in JS and HTML
</member>
</simplelist>
<simplelist>
<member>
- <emphasis>frameset-borders</emphasis>: Give frames a border
+ <emphasis>frameset-borders</emphasis>: Give frames a border and make them resizable
</member>
</simplelist>
<simplelist>
</simplelist>
<simplelist>
<member>
- <emphasis>no-refresh</emphasis>: Automatic refresh sucks on auto-dialup lines
+ <emphasis>refresh-tags</emphasis>: Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups)
</member>
</simplelist>
<simplelist>
</simplelist>
<simplelist>
<member>
- <emphasis>nimda</emphasis>: Remove (virus) Nimda code.
+ <emphasis>nimda</emphasis>: Remove Nimda (virus) code.
+ </member>
+ </simplelist>
+ <simplelist>
+ <member>
+ <emphasis>banners-by-size</emphasis>: Kill banners by size (<emphasis>very</emphasis> efficient!)
</member>
</simplelist>
<simplelist>
<member>
- <emphasis>banners-by-size</emphasis>: Kill banners by size
+ <emphasis>shockwave-flash</emphasis>: Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects
</member>
</simplelist>
<simplelist>
</simplelist>
</blockquote>
+
+ <para>
+ Note: Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to slow down
+ page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has passed
+ the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way since
+ the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more noticeable
+ on slower connections.
+</para>
+
</listitem>
<listitem>
<listitem>
<para> Decides what to do with URLs that end up tagged with <quote>{+block
- +image}</quote>, e.g an advertizement. There are five options.
+ +image}</quote>, e.g an advertisement. There are four options.
<quote>-image-blocker</quote> will send a HTML <quote>blocked</quote> page,
usually resulting in a <quote>broken image</quote> icon.
<!-- <quote>+image-blocker{logo}</quote> will send a -->
image. And finally, <quote>+image-blocker{http://xyz.com}</quote> will send a
HTTP temporary redirect to the specified image. This has the advantage of the
icon being being cached by the browser, which will speed up the display.
-<quote>+image-blocker{pattern}</quote> will send a checkboard type pattern
+<quote>+image-blocker{pattern}</quote> will send a checkerboard type pattern:
<!-- , -->
<!-- which scales better than the logo (which can get blocky if the browser -->
<!-- enlarges it too much). -->
<para>
Turn on page filtering according to rules in the defined sections
- of <filename>refilterfile</filename>, and make one exception for
- sourceforge:
+ of <filename>default.filter</filename>, and make one exception for
+ Sourceforge:
</para>
<para>
Requests</title>
<!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
-
&contacting;
-
<!-- end boilerplate -->
+
+<!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
+<sect2 id="submitactions">
+<title>Submitting Ads and <quote>Action</quote> Problems</title>
+<para>
+ Ads and banners that are not stopped by <application>Privoxy</application>
+ can be submitted to the developers by accessing a special page and filling
+ out the brief, required form. Conversely, you can also report pages, images,
+ etc. that <application>Privoxy</application> is blocking, but should not.
+ The form itself does require Internet access.
+</para>
+<para>
+ To do this, point your browser to <application>Privoxy</application>
+ at <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
+ (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>), and then select
+ <ulink url="javascript:w=Math.floor(screen.width/2);h=Math.floor(screen.height*0.9);void(window.open('http://www.privoxy.org/actions','Feedback','screenx='+w+',width='+w+',height='+h+',scrollbars=yes,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Actions file feedback system</ulink>,
+ near the bottom of the page. Paste in the URL that is the cause of the
+ unwanted behavior, and follow the prompts. The developers will
+ try to incorporate a fix for the problem you reported into future versions.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ New <filename>default.actions</filename> files will occasionally be made
+ available based on your feedback. These
+ will be announced on the
+ <ulink
+ url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce">ijbswa-announce</ulink>
+ list.
+</para>
+</sect2>
+
</sect1>
and then some examples:
</para>
-<simplelist>
+<para><simplelist>
<member>
<emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
<quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
</member>
-</simplelist>
+</simplelist></para>
-<simplelist>
+<para><simplelist>
<member>
<emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
times. Either/or.
</member>
-</simplelist>
+</simplelist></para>
-<simplelist>
+<para><simplelist>
<member>
<emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
times.
</member>
-</simplelist>
+</simplelist></para>
-<simplelist>
+<para><simplelist>
<member>
<emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
times.
</member>
-</simplelist>
+</simplelist></para>
-<simplelist>
+<para><simplelist>
<member>
<emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
not as a special meta-character.
</member>
-</simplelist>
+</simplelist></para>
-<simplelist>
+<para><simplelist>
<member>
<emphasis>[]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
any of the enclosed characters are encountered.
</member>
-</simplelist>
+</simplelist></para>
-<simplelist>
+<para><simplelist>
<member>
<emphasis>()</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
or multiple sub-expressions.
</member>
-</simplelist>
+</simplelist></para>
-<simplelist>
+<para><simplelist>
<member>
<emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
<quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches.
</member>
-</simplelist>
+</simplelist></para>
-<simplelist>
+<para><simplelist>
<member>
<emphasis>s/string1/string2/g</emphasis> - This is used to rewrite strings of text.
<quote>string1</quote> is replaced by <quote>string2</quote> in this
example.
</member>
-</simplelist>
+</simplelist></para>
<para>
These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
(IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
- Bookmarklet directly from your favourites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
+ Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
</para>
easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
<emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
- is causing us a problem inadvertantly. It can be a little daunting to look at
+ is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
<quote>regular expressions</quote> whose consequences are not always
so obvious. <application>Privoxy</application> provides the
how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
help with filtering effects from the <filename>default.filter</filename> file! It
also will not tell you about any other URLs that may be embedded within the
- URL you are testing. For instance, images such as ads are expressed as URLs
+ URL you are testing (i.e. a web page). For instance, images such as ads are expressed as URLs
within the raw page source of HTML pages. So you will only get info for the
actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area -- not any sub-URLs. If you
want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you will have to dig those out of
These are the default actions we have enabled. But we can define additional
actions that would be exceptions to these general rules, and then list
specific URLs that these exceptions would apply to. Last match wins.
- Just below this then are two explict matches for <quote>.google.com</quote>.
+ Just below this then are two explicit matches for <quote>.google.com</quote>.
The first is negating our various cookie blocking actions (i.e. we will allow
cookies here). The second is allowing <quote>fast-redirects</quote>. Note
that there is a leading dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will
<para>
And now we pull it altogether in the bottom section and summarize how
- <application>Privoxy</application> is appying all its <quote>actions</quote>
+ <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
to <quote>google.com</quote>:
</para>
<para>
Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote>! But
we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the blank page. We could
- now add a new action below this that explictly does <emphasis>not</emphasis>
+ now add a new action below this that explicitly does <emphasis>not</emphasis>
block (-block) pages with <quote>adsl</quote>. There are various ways to
handle such exceptions. Example:
</para>
Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
$Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
+ Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
+ Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
+
+ Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
+ Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
+
+ Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
+ Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
+
+ Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
+ Proofreading part 2
+
+ Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
+ Proofreading, part one
+
+ Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
+ -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
+ -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
+
+ Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
+ Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
+
+ Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
+ Add small section on submitting actions.
+
+ Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
+ generated
+
+ Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
+ Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
+
Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
projects / privoxy.git / blobdiff