How do I set up curl to permanently use a proxy?

Question

How can I set up "curl" to permanently use a proxy server in the terminal?

why was this question closed? seems quite important to me... — Deepend, Jul 08 '13 at 15:40
I suspect it was considered off topic because it did not explicitly mention how cURL was being used in a programming problem (e.g. writing a script to do something interesting). It might have just as well been formulated as a sysadmin question better suited to ServerFault. — jacobq, Aug 10 '15 at 20:56
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9445489/linux-curl-command-with-proxy — David, Nov 14 '16 at 08:42

Sandro Munda · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-26T17:59:49.760

195

You can make a alias in your ~/.bashrc file :

alias curl="curl -x <proxy_host>:<proxy_port>"

Another solution is to use (maybe the better solution) the ~/.curlrc file (create it if it does not exist) :

proxy = <proxy_host>:<proxy_port>

edited Sep 26 '11 at 17:59

answered Sep 26 '11 at 17:54

Sandro Munda

25

Setting the proxy in ~/.curlrc has saved me many painful hours when working from within a corporate proxy. Thanks! – Lachlan McDonald Dec 12 '12 at 23:57
what about user:pass auth to that? – Brian Vanderbusch Jan 21 '13 at 21:33
5

You could try the format username:password@proxy:port. – Lachlan McDonald Jan 25 '13 at 01:30
4

If anyone comes along and is trying to accomplish this with Windows / DOSKEY, I used `alias curl=curl --proxy $*` – Brandon Linton Apr 18 '14 at 15:14
Worked on Ubuntu 20 as well – Hitesh Sahu Sep 08 '21 at 07:38

score 50 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 14 '16 at 16:11

50

Many UNIX programs respect the http_proxy environment variable, curl included. The format curl accepts is [protocol://]<host>[:port].

In your shell configuration:

export http_proxy http://proxy.server.com:3128

For proxying HTTPS requests, set https_proxy as well.

Curl also allows you to set this in your .curlrc file (_curlrc on Windows), which you might consider more permanent:

http_proxy=http://proxy.server.com:3128

edited Jul 14 '16 at 16:11

Gui Prá

answered Sep 26 '11 at 17:58

Peter T

12

env variable did not work for me (in Terminal on a mac). – Kendall Helmstetter Gelner Feb 21 '12 at 18:27
3

To proxy HTTPS traffic on mac, setting the http**s**_proxy env variable in the terminal before invoking curl, worked for me. For example, `export https_proxy=https://proxy.server.com:6443` – Raghu Dodda Apr 12 '16 at 23:44
2

Also note that setting HTTP_PROXY/HTTPS_PROXY (uppercase) does not work, but setting http_proxy/https_proxy (lowercase) does. – Martijn Aug 12 '17 at 18:26

score 17 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 26 '11 at 17:56

17

Curl will look for a .curlrc file in your home folder when it starts. You can create (or edit) this file and add this line:

proxy = yourproxy.com:8080

answered Sep 26 '11 at 17:56

Trevor

This works on Ubuntu 16.04. It should be accepted answer for that OS. – Frank.Germain Dec 13 '18 at 14:40
Can confirm it worked for Ubuntu 20 as well. – Hitesh Sahu Sep 08 '21 at 07:08

score 13 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 28 '13 at 03:52

13

One notice. On Windows, place your _curlrc in '%APPDATA%' or '%USERPROFILE%\Application Data'.

answered Mar 28 '13 at 03:52

feech

4 Answers4