Java HTTP Proxy Settings

Posted on May 4, 2007 by Imran Aziz

Overview

For local networks within an organization, access to the public-domain Internet is often via a HTTP Proxy. This article talks about the HTTP proxy settings for the Java environment. I did not find a good document on the Web to describe these settings; Had to discover many of them by trial-and-error. Hence this article.

Keywords

HTTP Proxy, Java Proxy Settings, Tomcat, Application Server, Servlets, HTTP Proxy Authentication for Java, Java Application Proxy Settings

Scenario

Your Java client runs on a machine on the Local network – Private LAN. The client could be a standalone application, or a servlet hosted on a web container like Tomcat
Your code access an external resource using HTTP. For example, invoking an external Web Service.
Your HTTP call needs to tunnel through the HTTP proxy (using SOCKS authentication). Even if authentication is not required, you would still need to configure the URL and the Port of your HTTP proxy.

Settings

Use one of the methods below for your JVM proxy settings. Try an alternate method if any particular method does not work. In most cases, you should not require any change the pre-compiled Java code for proxy settings. JVM’s environment settings should be enough to fix this problem.

Command Line JVM Settings

The proxy settings are given to the JVM via command line arguments:

$ java -Dhttp.proxyHost=proxyhostURL
-Dhttp.proxyPort=proxyPortNumber
-Dhttp.proxyUser=someUserName
-Dhttp.proxyPassword=somePassword javaClassToRun

Setting System Properties in Code

Add the following lines in your Java code so that JVM uses the proxy to make HTTP calls. This would, of course, require you to recompile your Java source. (The other methods do not require any recompilation.):

System.getProperties().put("http.proxyHost", "someProxyURL");
System.getProperties().put("http.proxyPort", "someProxyPort");
System.getProperties().put("http.proxyUser", "someUserName");
System.getProperties().put("http.proxyPassword", "somePassword");

Don’t hardcode the proxy settings in your source. Read these settings from a configurable text file, so your users can configure them. You might also need to set this property:

System.getProperties().put("proxySet", "true");

System.getProperties().put("http.proxySet", "true");

Tomcat Settings: catalina.properties

Append these properties to the catalina.properties file in Tomcat: ${CATALINA_OME}/conf/catalina.properties file:

http.proxyHost=yourProxyURL
http.proxyPort=yourProxyPort
http.proxyUser=yourUserName
http.proxyPassword=yourPassword

Tomcat Settings: catalina.bat

Add all the parameters defined above in the ${CATALINA_HOME}/bin/catalina.bat (for Windows) or ${CATALINA_HOME}/bin/catalina.bat (for *nix):

JAVA_OPTS="-Dhttp.proxyHost=yourProxyURL ..."

(Each option is seperated by spaces.)

References

28 thoughts on “Java HTTP Proxy Settings”

riyaz on May 4, 2007 at 5:37 am said:

Good effort, using Proxy class gives us more freedom. You can refer this link Java Networking and Proxies

Reply ↓
tovorinok on July 5, 2007 at 6:08 am said:

Hello

Great book. I just want to say what a fantastic thing you are doing! Good luck!

G’night

Reply ↓
lyman on August 7, 2007 at 8:12 pm said:

where to fill the domain? domain/yourUserName is failed

Reply ↓
maria on November 13, 2007 at 11:38 am said:

good

Reply ↓
Pingback: Aaron Johnson » Blog Archive » Links: 11-13-2007
Pingback: Aaron Johnson » Blog Archive » Java, Commons HTTP Client and HTTP proxies
Pingback: Links: 11-14-2007 :: the correct shade of blue
music on January 6, 2008 at 11:03 pm said:

very interesting.
i’m adding in RSS Reader

Reply ↓
Minh on April 29, 2008 at 7:48 pm said:

Thanks, very useful for me 🙂

Reply ↓
kid93 on June 28, 2008 at 7:32 pm said:

so with this piece of code, i could integrate it with an application? and it would automatically go through the proxy? as long as i had access to the http proxy service?

Reply ↓
raviteja on June 30, 2008 at 6:26 am said:

Thanx.. dude…
helped me much….
while working wid amazon ec2 and soap…

Reply ↓
Eswar on October 28, 2008 at 7:12 am said:

Thanks for the info.

Is it possible to specify a .pac script(Proxy Auto Configuration) instead of proxy host information?

Reply ↓
Ed. on December 3, 2008 at 7:47 am said:

Thank you. I was looking for it for a long time!

Reply ↓
Jamshid on December 9, 2008 at 2:08 pm said:

Imran, does your code above really work if the proxy requires authentication? I don’t think it does, note that http.proxyUser / http.proxyPassword are standard properties like http.proxyHost.

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/net/proxies.html

You have to use a java.net.Authenticator, sample here:

http://www.softonaut.com/2008/06/09/using-javanetauthenticator-for-proxy-authentication/

Reply ↓
Imran Aziz on January 17, 2009 at 7:20 am said:

Thanks Jamshid for providing additional details and links.

Reply ↓
Plínio Marco Canto on May 14, 2009 at 6:56 am said:

Tanks!!!

very very useful your information….!!!!

Abraços…

Reply ↓
Akash on October 13, 2009 at 2:48 pm said:

HI
I am getting following error kindly help me

java.io.IOException: Server returned HTTP response code: 407 for URL: http://wwwd.way2sms.com/auth.cl
at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream(HttpURLConnection.java:1236)
at com.aswinanand.sms.SMS.send(SMS.java:76)
at MeraSMS.main(MeraSMS.java:31)

Reply ↓
Sarath on November 9, 2009 at 2:23 am said:

Hi
I am also getting same problem ,any one kindly help to solve the below issue
java.io.IOException: Server returned HTTP response code: 407 for URL: http://wwwd.way2sms.com/auth.cl
at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream(HttpURLConnection.java:1236)
at com.aswinanand.sms.SMS.send(SMS.java:76)
at MeraSMS.main(MeraSMS.java:31)

Reply ↓
EJP on January 4, 2010 at 3:31 pm said:

Several errors here.

1. The proxySet property has never existed in the JDK, so setting it to ‘true’ or ‘false’ or ‘fred’ does nothing. It was part of the now very defunct HotJavabean (1997) and leaked into various books.

2. The http.proxyUser and http.proxyPassword properties aren’t part of the JDK either. I believe they are part of one of the Apache libraries.

Reply ↓
Ganesh on February 5, 2010 at 12:15 am said:

This is cool man.. Thanks so much!!

Reply ↓
belgther on March 8, 2011 at 10:06 am said:

should be catalina.sh instead of catalina.bat for *nix.

Reply ↓
alice 2011 on April 8, 2011 at 10:52 am said:

We have a automatic proxy configuration file “***.pac” file.

There is no user name or password,

Does anyone know how to code for this situation?

Reply ↓
Vijender on May 12, 2011 at 9:53 pm said:

Hi I am running a standalone program as proxy server and provided all properties, but it is accepting though the user name is wrong.

/***************************************************************************
* Copyright (C)2011 Deutsche Bank AG APHO
* %created_by: Vijender D (devvije) %
* %derived_by: %
* %date_created: 3:29:17 PM May 12, 2011 %
* %date_modified: %
* %state: %
* %full_filespec: %
* %release: %
*
* Author: Vijender D (devvije)
*
* Created on: May 12, 2011
*
* Purpose:
*
* Change History:
* Date Author Reason
* ————————————————————————–
* May 12, 2011 Vijender D
*
***************************************************************************/
/**
* @author devvije
*
*/

import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;

public class SimpleProxyServer {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
try {
String localhost = “10.172.85.193”;
String remotehost = “10.171.160.22”;
int remoteport = 6666;
int localport = 6666;
// Print a start-up message
System.out.println(“Starting proxy for ” + localhost + “:” + remoteport
+ ” on port ” + localport);

System.getProperties().put(“http.proxyHost”, localhost);
System.getProperties().put(“http.proxyPort”, localport);
System.getProperties().put(“http.proxyUser”, “vijender”);
System.getProperties().put(“http.proxyPassword”, “vijender123”);
System.getProperties().put(“proxySet”, “true”);
System.getProperties().put(“http.proxySet”, “true”);

// And start running the server
runServer(remotehost, remoteport, localport); // never returns
} catch (Exception e) {
System.err.println(e);
}
}

/**
* runs a single-threaded proxy server on
* the specified local port. It never returns.
*/
public static void runServer(String remotehost, int remoteport, int localport)
throws IOException {
// Create a ServerSocket to listen for connections with
ServerSocket ss = new ServerSocket(localport);

final byte[] request = new byte[1024];
byte[] reply = new byte[4096];

while (true) {
Socket client = null, server = null;
try {
// Wait for a connection on the local port
client = ss.accept();

final InputStream streamFromClient = client.getInputStream();
final OutputStream streamToClient = client.getOutputStream();

// Make a connection to the real server.
// If we cannot connect to the server, send an error to the
// client, disconnect, and continue waiting for connections.
try {
server = new Socket(remotehost, remoteport);
} catch (IOException e) {
PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(streamToClient);
out.print(“Proxy server cannot connect to ” + remotehost + “:”
+ remoteport + “:\n” + e + “\n”);
out.flush();
client.close();
continue;
}

// Get server streams.
final InputStream streamFromServer = server.getInputStream();
final OutputStream streamToServer = server.getOutputStream();

// a thread to read the client’s requests and pass them
// to the server. A separate thread for asynchronous.
Thread t = new Thread() {
public void run() {
int bytesRead;
try {
while ((bytesRead = streamFromClient.read(request)) != -1) {
streamToServer.write(request, 0, bytesRead);
streamToServer.flush();
}
} catch (IOException e) {
}

// the client closed the connection to us, so close our
// connection to the server.
try {
streamToServer.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
}
}
};

// Start the client-to-server request thread running
t.start();

// Read the server’s responses
// and pass them back to the client.
int bytesRead;
try {
while ((bytesRead = streamFromServer.read(reply)) != -1) {
streamToClient.write(reply, 0, bytesRead);
streamToClient.flush();
}
} catch (IOException e) {
}

// The server closed its connection to us, so we close our
// connection to our client.
streamToClient.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
System.err.println(e);
} finally {
try {
if (server != null)
server.close();
if (client != null)
client.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
}
}
}
}
}

Reply ↓
marketing télécom on May 30, 2012 at 10:13 pm said:

Hiya very nice site!! Guy .. Excellent .. Amazing .. I’ll bookmark your site and take the feeds additionally?I’m glad to search out numerous useful information right here within the post, we’d like work out more techniques in this regard, thanks for sharing. . . . . .

Reply ↓
Pingback: jvm http proxy – wiloon
Tim on September 13, 2012 at 10:24 pm said:

There is NO SUCH THING as http.proxyUser and http.proxyPassword! They don’t exist. Proxies with authentication will not work with these commands.

Reply ↓
web ressource on November 26, 2012 at 7:51 am said:

Excellent post. I was checking continuously this blog and I am impressed!
Very helpful info particularly the last part :
) I care for such info a lot. I was seeking this particular information for a long time.
Thank you and good luck.

Reply ↓
Abiram on May 19, 2014 at 11:44 pm said:

Reblogged this on Around the Code !!.

Reply ↓