-All tasks running in Ant's JVM share the same HTTP/FTP/Socks +All tasks and threads running in Ant's JVM share the same HTTP/FTP/Socks proxy configuration.
@@ -71,33 +71,66 @@ proxy configuration.This property maybe enough to give command-line Ant builds network access, although in practise the results - are somewhat disappointing. + are inconsistent.
- We are not entirely sure where it reads the property settings from. - For windows, it probably reads the appropriate bits of the registry. For - Unix/Linux it may use the current Gnome2 settings. - + It is has also been reported a breaking the IBM Java 5 JRE on AIX, + and does not always work on Linux (presumably due to missing gconf settings) + Other odd things can go wrong, like Oracle JDBC drivers or pure Java SVN clients. +
+
- One limitation of this feature, other than requiring a 1.5+ JVM,
- is that it is not dynamic. A long-lasting build hosted on a laptop will
- not adapt to changes in proxy settings.
+ To make the -autoproxy option the default, add it to the environment variable
+ ANT_ARGS, which contains a list of arguments to pass to Ant on every
+ command line run.
+We are grateful for some input from Sun as to how the proxy code works under
+Java 1.5 and up. The java.net.useSystemProxies is checked only
+once, at startup time, the other checks (registry, gconf, system properties) are done
+dynamically whenever needed (socket connection, URL connection etc..).
+
- It is has also been reported a breaking the IBM Java 5 JRE on AIX, - and does not appear to work reliably on Linux. - Other odd things can go wrong, like Oracle JDBC drivers or pure Java SVN clients. +The JVM goes straight to the registry, bypassing WinInet, as it is not +present/consistent on all supported Windows platforms (it is part of IE, +really). Java 7 may use the Windows APIs on the platforms when it is present.
+
- To make the -autproxy option the default, add it to the environment variable
- ANT_ARGS, which contains a list of arguments to pass to Ant on every
- command line run.
+The JVM uses the gconf library to look at specific entries.
+The GConf-2 settings used are:
+
+ - /system/http_proxy/use_http_proxy boolean + - /system/http_proxy/use_authentication boolean + - /system/http_proxy/host string + - /system/http_proxy/authentication_user string + - /system/http_proxy/authentication_password string + - /system/http_proxy/port int + - /system/proxy/socks_host string + - /system/proxy/mode string + - /system/proxy/ftp_host string + - /system/proxy/secure_host string + - /system/proxy/socks_port int + - /system/proxy/ftp_port int + - /system/proxy/secure_port int + - /system/proxy/no_proxy_for list + - /system/proxy/gopher_host string + - /system/proxy/gopher_port int ++
+If you are using KDE or another GUI than Gnome, you can still use the
+gconf-editor tool to add these entries.
Any JVM can have its proxy options explicitly configured by passing
the appropriate -D system property options to the runtime.
@@ -116,8 +149,13 @@ proxy configuration.
setenv ANT_OPTS "-Dhttp.proxyHost=proxy -Dhttp.proxyPort=8080"
- For Windows, set the ANT_OPTS environment variable in the appropriate "MyComputer" - properties dialog box. +If you insert this line into the Ant shell script itself, it gets picked up +by all continuous integration tools running on the system that call Ant via the +command line. +
+
+ For Windows, set the ANT_OPTS environment variable in the appropriate "My Computer"
+ properties dialog box (winXP), "Computer" properties (Vista)
This mechanism works across Java versions, is cross-platform and reliable. @@ -133,6 +171,7 @@ proxy configuration.
The setproxy task can be used to @@ -174,16 +213,73 @@ proxy configuration. </target> +
+ As Java lets developers write their own ProxySelector implementations, it + is theoretically possible for someone to write their own proxy selector class that uses + different policies to determine proxy settings. There is no explicit support + for this in Ant, and it has not, to the team's knowledge, been attempted. +
++ This could be the most flexible of solutions, as one could easily imagine + an Ant-specific proxy selector that was driven off ant properties, rather + than system properties. Developers could set proxy options in their + custom build.properties files, and have this propagate. +
++ One issue here is with concurrency: the default proxy selector is per-JVM, + not per-thread, and so the proxy settings will apply to all sockets opened + on all threads; we also have the problem of how to propagate options from + one build to the JVM-wide selector. +
+ +
+ Any program that is executed with <java> without setting
+ fork="true" will pick up the Ant's settings. If you need
+ different values, set fork="false" and provide the values
+ in <sysproperty> elements.
+
<syspropertyset>
+ element to propagate the normal proxy settings. The following propertyset
+ is a datatype which can be referenced in a <java> task to
+ pass down the current values.
+
+
++<propertyset id="proxy.properties"> + <propertyref prefix="java.net.useSystemProxies"/> + <propertyref prefix="http."/> + <propertyref prefix="https."/> + <propertyref prefix="ftp."/> + <propertyref prefix="socksProxy"/> +</propertyset> ++
-There are three ways to set up proxies in Ant. +There are four ways to set up proxies in Ant.
-autoproxy parameter.-autoproxy parameter.+Proxy settings are automatically shared with Java programs started under Ant +that are not forked; to pass proxy settings down to subsidiary programs, use +a propertyset. +
+
+Over time, we expect the Java 5+ proxy features to stabilize, and for Java code
+to adapt to them. However, given the fact that it currently does break some
+builds, it will be some time before Ant enables the automatic proxy feature by
+default. Until then, you have to enable the -autoproxy option or
+use one of the alternate mechanisms to configure the JVM.