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41 <h1 class="SECT1"><a name="CONFIG" id="CONFIG">7. The Main Configuration
44 <p>By default, the main configuration file is named <tt class=
45 "FILENAME">config</tt>, with the exception of Windows, where it is named
46 <tt class="FILENAME">config.txt</tt>. Configuration lines consist of an
47 initial keyword followed by a list of values, all separated by whitespace
48 (any number of spaces or tabs). For example:</p>
50 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT"><tt class="LITERAL"> <span class=
51 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">confdir /etc/privoxy</i></span></tt></p>
53 <p>Assigns the value <tt class="LITERAL">/etc/privoxy</tt> to the option
54 <tt class="LITERAL">confdir</tt> and thus indicates that the
55 configuration directory is named <span class=
56 "QUOTE">"/etc/privoxy/"</span>.</p>
58 <p>All options in the config file except for <tt class=
59 "LITERAL">confdir</tt> and <tt class="LITERAL">logdir</tt> are optional.
60 Watch out in the below description for what happens if you leave them
63 <p>The main config file controls all aspects of <span class=
64 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>'s operation that are not location dependent
65 (i.e. they apply universally, no matter where you may be surfing). Like
66 the filter and action files, the config file is a plain text file and can
67 be modified with a text editor like emacs, vim or notepad.exe.</p>
70 <h2 class="SECT2"><a name="LOCAL-SET-UP" id="LOCAL-SET-UP">7.1. Local
71 Set-up Documentation</a></h2>
73 <p>If you intend to operate <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
74 for more users than just yourself, it might be a good idea to let them
75 know how to reach you, what you block and why you do that, your
79 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="USER-MANUAL" id="USER-MANUAL">7.1.1.
82 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
87 <p>Location of the <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
91 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
94 <p>A fully qualified URI</p>
97 <dt>Default value:</dt>
100 <p><span class="emphasis"><i class=
101 "EMPHASIS">Unset</i></span></p>
104 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
107 <p><a href="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/" target=
108 "_top">http://www.privoxy.org/<tt class=
109 "REPLACEABLE"><i>version</i></tt>/user-manual/</a> will be
110 used, where <tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>version</i></tt> is the
111 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> version.</p>
117 <p>The User Manual URI is the single best source of information
118 on <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>, and is used for
119 help links from some of the internal CGI pages. The manual
120 itself is normally packaged with the binary distributions, so
121 you probably want to set this to a locally installed copy.</p>
125 <p>The best all purpose solution is simply to put the full
126 local <tt class="LITERAL">PATH</tt> to where the <i class=
127 "CITETITLE">User Manual</i> is located:</p>
129 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
133 user-manual /usr/share/doc/privoxy/user-manual
139 <p>The User Manual is then available to anyone with access to
140 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>, by following the
141 built-in URL: <tt class=
142 "LITERAL">http://config.privoxy.org/user-manual/</tt> (or the
144 "LITERAL">http://p.p/user-manual/</tt>).</p>
146 <p>If the documentation is not on the local system, it can be
147 accessed from a remote server, as:</p>
149 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
153 user-manual http://example.com/privoxy/user-manual/
159 <div class="WARNING">
160 <table class="WARNING" border="1" width="90%">
162 <td align="center"><b>Warning</b></td>
167 <p>If set, this option should be <span class=
168 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">the first option in the
169 config file</i></span>, because it is used while the
170 config file is being read on start-up.</p>
181 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="TRUST-INFO-URL" id="TRUST-INFO-URL">7.1.2.
182 trust-info-url</a></h4>
184 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
189 <p>A URL to be displayed in the error page that users will see
190 if access to an untrusted page is denied.</p>
193 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
199 <dt>Default value:</dt>
202 <p><span class="emphasis"><i class=
203 "EMPHASIS">Unset</i></span></p>
206 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
209 <p>No links are displayed on the "untrusted" error page.</p>
215 <p>The value of this option only matters if the experimental
216 trust mechanism has been activated. (See <a href=
217 "config.html#TRUSTFILE"><span class="emphasis"><i class=
218 "EMPHASIS">trustfile</i></span></a> below.)</p>
220 <p>If you use the trust mechanism, it is a good idea to write
221 up some on-line documentation about your trust policy and to
222 specify the URL(s) here. Use multiple times for multiple
225 <p>The URL(s) should be added to the trustfile as well, so
226 users don't end up locked out from the information on why they
227 were locked out in the first place!</p>
234 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="ADMIN-ADDRESS" id="ADMIN-ADDRESS">7.1.3.
235 admin-address</a></h4>
237 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
242 <p>An email address to reach the <span class=
243 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> administrator.</p>
246 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
252 <dt>Default value:</dt>
255 <p><span class="emphasis"><i class=
256 "EMPHASIS">Unset</i></span></p>
259 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
262 <p>No email address is displayed on error pages and the CGI
269 <p>If both <tt class="LITERAL">admin-address</tt> and
270 <tt class="LITERAL">proxy-info-url</tt> are unset, the whole
271 "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will not be
279 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="PROXY-INFO-URL" id="PROXY-INFO-URL">7.1.4.
280 proxy-info-url</a></h4>
282 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
287 <p>A URL to documentation about the local <span class=
288 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> setup, configuration or
292 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
298 <dt>Default value:</dt>
301 <p><span class="emphasis"><i class=
302 "EMPHASIS">Unset</i></span></p>
305 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
308 <p>No link to local documentation is displayed on error pages
309 and the CGI user interface.</p>
315 <p>If both <tt class="LITERAL">admin-address</tt> and
316 <tt class="LITERAL">proxy-info-url</tt> are unset, the whole
317 "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will not be
320 <p>This URL shouldn't be blocked ;-)</p>
328 <h2 class="SECT2"><a name="CONF-LOG-LOC" id="CONF-LOG-LOC">7.2.
329 Configuration and Log File Locations</a></h2>
331 <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> can (and normally does) use
332 a number of other files for additional configuration, help and logging.
333 This section of the configuration file tells <span class=
334 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> where to find those other files.</p>
336 <p>The user running <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>, must have
337 read permission for all configuration files, and write permission to
338 any files that would be modified, such as log files and actions
342 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="CONFDIR" id="CONFDIR">7.2.1.
345 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
350 <p>The directory where the other configuration files are
354 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
360 <dt>Default value:</dt>
363 <p>/etc/privoxy (Unix) <span class="emphasis"><i class=
364 "EMPHASIS">or</i></span> <span class=
365 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> installation dir (Windows)</p>
368 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
371 <p><span class="emphasis"><i class=
372 "EMPHASIS">Mandatory</i></span></p>
378 <p>No trailing <span class="QUOTE">"<tt class=
379 "LITERAL">/</tt>"</span>, please.</p>
386 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="TEMPLDIR" id="TEMPLDIR">7.2.2.
389 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
394 <p>An alternative directory where the templates are loaded
398 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
404 <dt>Default value:</dt>
410 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
413 <p>The templates are assumed to be located in
414 confdir/template.</p>
420 <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> original
421 templates are usually overwritten with each update. Use this
422 option to relocate customized templates that should be kept. As
423 template variables might change between updates, you shouldn't
424 expect templates to work with <span class=
425 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> releases other than the one they
426 were part of, though.</p>
433 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="LOGDIR" id="LOGDIR">7.2.3. logdir</a></h4>
435 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
440 <p>The directory where all logging takes place (i.e. where the
441 <tt class="FILENAME">logfile</tt> is located).</p>
444 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
450 <dt>Default value:</dt>
453 <p>/var/log/privoxy (Unix) <span class="emphasis"><i class=
454 "EMPHASIS">or</i></span> <span class=
455 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> installation dir (Windows)</p>
458 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
461 <p><span class="emphasis"><i class=
462 "EMPHASIS">Mandatory</i></span></p>
468 <p>No trailing <span class="QUOTE">"<tt class=
469 "LITERAL">/</tt>"</span>, please.</p>
476 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="ACTIONSFILE" id="ACTIONSFILE">7.2.4.
477 actionsfile</a></h4><a name="DEFAULT.ACTION" id=
478 "DEFAULT.ACTION"></a><a name="STANDARD.ACTION" id=
479 "STANDARD.ACTION"></a><a name="USER.ACTION" id="USER.ACTION"></a>
481 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
486 <p>The <a href="actions-file.html">actions file(s)</a> to
490 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
493 <p>Complete file name, relative to <tt class=
494 "LITERAL">confdir</tt></p>
497 <dt>Default values:</dt>
504 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT">
505 match-all.action # Actions that are applied to all sites and maybe overruled later on.</p>
511 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT">
512 default.action # Main actions file</p>
518 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT">
519 user.action # User customizations</p>
526 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
529 <p>No actions are taken at all. More or less neutral
536 <p>Multiple <tt class="LITERAL">actionsfile</tt> lines are
537 permitted, and are in fact recommended!</p>
539 <p>The default values are <tt class=
540 "FILENAME">default.action</tt>, which is the <span class=
541 "QUOTE">"main"</span> actions file maintained by the
542 developers, and <tt class="FILENAME">user.action</tt>, where
543 you can make your personal additions.</p>
545 <p>Actions files contain all the per site and per URL
546 configuration for ad blocking, cookie management, privacy
547 considerations, etc. There is no point in using <span class=
548 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> without at least one actions
551 <p>Note that since Privoxy 3.0.7, the complete filename,
552 including the <span class="QUOTE">".action"</span> extension
553 has to be specified. The syntax change was necessary to be
554 consistent with the other file options and to allow previously
555 forbidden characters.</p>
562 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="FILTERFILE" id="FILTERFILE">7.2.5.
563 filterfile</a></h4><a name="DEFAULT.FILTER" id="DEFAULT.FILTER"></a>
565 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
570 <p>The <a href="filter-file.html">filter file(s)</a> to use</p>
573 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
576 <p>File name, relative to <tt class="LITERAL">confdir</tt></p>
579 <dt>Default value:</dt>
582 <p>default.filter (Unix) <span class="emphasis"><i class=
583 "EMPHASIS">or</i></span> default.filter.txt (Windows)</p>
586 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
589 <p>No textual content filtering takes place, i.e. all
590 <tt class="LITERAL">+<a href=
591 "actions-file.html#FILTER">filter</a>{<tt class=
592 "REPLACEABLE"><i>name</i></tt>}</tt> actions in the actions
593 files are turned neutral.</p>
599 <p>Multiple <tt class="LITERAL">filterfile</tt> lines are
602 <p>The <a href="filter-file.html">filter files</a> contain
603 content modification rules that use <a href=
604 "appendix.html#REGEX">regular expressions</a>. These rules
605 permit powerful changes on the content of Web pages, and
606 optionally the headers as well, e.g., you could try to disable
607 your favorite JavaScript annoyances, re-write the actual
608 displayed text, or just have some fun playing buzzword bingo
611 <p>The <tt class="LITERAL">+<a href=
612 "actions-file.html#FILTER">filter</a>{<tt class=
613 "REPLACEABLE"><i>name</i></tt>}</tt> actions rely on the
614 relevant filter (<tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>name</i></tt>) to
615 be defined in a filter file!</p>
617 <p>A pre-defined filter file called <tt class=
618 "FILENAME">default.filter</tt> that contains a number of useful
619 filters for common problems is included in the distribution.
620 See the section on the <tt class="LITERAL"><a href=
621 "actions-file.html#FILTER">filter</a></tt> action for a
624 <p>It is recommended to place any locally adapted filters into
625 a separate file, such as <tt class=
626 "FILENAME">user.filter</tt>.</p>
633 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="LOGFILE" id="LOGFILE">7.2.6.
636 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
641 <p>The log file to use</p>
644 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
647 <p>File name, relative to <tt class="LITERAL">logdir</tt></p>
650 <dt>Default value:</dt>
653 <p><span class="emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">Unset (commented
654 out)</i></span>. When activated: logfile (Unix) <span class=
655 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">or</i></span> privoxy.log
659 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
662 <p>No logfile is written.</p>
668 <p>The logfile is where all logging and error messages are
669 written. The level of detail and number of messages are set
670 with the <tt class="LITERAL">debug</tt> option (see below). The
671 logfile can be useful for tracking down a problem with
672 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> (e.g., it's not
673 blocking an ad you think it should block) and it can help you
674 to monitor what your browser is doing.</p>
676 <p>Depending on the debug options below, the logfile may be a
677 privacy risk if third parties can get access to it. As most
678 users will never look at it, <span class=
679 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 3.0.7 and later only log fatal
680 errors by default.</p>
682 <p>For most troubleshooting purposes, you will have to change
683 that, please refer to the debugging section for details.</p>
685 <p>Your logfile will grow indefinitely, and you will probably
686 want to periodically remove it. On Unix systems, you can do
687 this with a cron job (see <span class="QUOTE">"man
688 cron"</span>). For Red Hat based Linux distributions, a
689 <b class="COMMAND">logrotate</b> script has been included.</p>
691 <p>Any log files must be writable by whatever user <span class=
692 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is being run as (on Unix, default
693 user id is <span class="QUOTE">"privoxy"</span>).</p>
700 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="TRUSTFILE" id="TRUSTFILE">7.2.7.
703 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
708 <p>The name of the trust file to use</p>
711 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
714 <p>File name, relative to <tt class="LITERAL">confdir</tt></p>
717 <dt>Default value:</dt>
720 <p><span class="emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">Unset (commented
721 out)</i></span>. When activated: trust (Unix) <span class=
722 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">or</i></span> trust.txt
726 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
729 <p>The entire trust mechanism is disabled.</p>
735 <p>The trust mechanism is an experimental feature for building
736 white-lists and should be used with care. It is <span class=
737 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">NOT</i></span> recommended for
740 <p>If you specify a trust file, <span class=
741 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will only allow access to sites
742 that are specified in the trustfile. Sites can be listed in one
745 <p>Prepending a <tt class="LITERAL">~</tt> character limits
746 access to this site only (and any sub-paths within this site),
747 e.g. <tt class="LITERAL">~www.example.com</tt> allows access to
748 <tt class="LITERAL">~www.example.com/features/news.html</tt>,
751 <p>Or, you can designate sites as <span class=
752 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">trusted referrers</i></span>, by
753 prepending the name with a <tt class="LITERAL">+</tt>
754 character. The effect is that access to untrusted sites will be
755 granted -- but only if a link from this trusted referrer was
756 used to get there. The link target will then be added to the
757 <span class="QUOTE">"trustfile"</span> so that future, direct
758 accesses will be granted. Sites added via this mechanism do not
759 become trusted referrers themselves (i.e. they are added with a
760 <tt class="LITERAL">~</tt> designation). There is a limit of
761 512 such entries, after which new entries will not be made.</p>
763 <p>If you use the <tt class="LITERAL">+</tt> operator in the
764 trust file, it may grow considerably over time.</p>
766 <p>It is recommended that <span class=
767 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> be compiled with the <tt class=
768 "LITERAL">--disable-force</tt>, <tt class=
769 "LITERAL">--disable-toggle</tt> and <tt class=
770 "LITERAL">--disable-editor</tt> options, if this feature is to
773 <p>Possible applications include limiting Internet access for
782 <h2 class="SECT2"><a name="DEBUGGING" id="DEBUGGING">7.3.
785 <p>These options are mainly useful when tracing a problem. Note that
786 you might also want to invoke <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
787 with the <tt class="LITERAL">--no-daemon</tt> command line option when
791 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="DEBUG" id="DEBUG">7.3.1. debug</a></h4>
793 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
798 <p>Key values that determine what information gets logged.</p>
801 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
804 <p>Integer values</p>
807 <dt>Default value:</dt>
810 <p>0 (i.e.: only fatal errors (that cause Privoxy to exit) are
814 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
817 <p>Default value is used (see above).</p>
823 <p>The available debug levels are:</p>
825 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
828 <pre class="PROGRAMLISTING">
829 debug 1 # Log the destination for each request <span class=
830 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> let through. See also debug 1024.
831 debug 2 # show each connection status
832 debug 4 # show I/O status
833 debug 8 # show header parsing
834 debug 16 # log all data written to the network
835 debug 32 # debug force feature
836 debug 64 # debug regular expression filters
837 debug 128 # debug redirects
838 debug 256 # debug GIF de-animation
839 debug 512 # Common Log Format
840 debug 1024 # Log the destination for requests <span class=
841 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> didn't let through, and the reason why.
842 debug 2048 # CGI user interface
843 debug 4096 # Startup banner and warnings.
844 debug 8192 # Non-fatal errors
845 debug 32768 # log all data read from the network
851 <p>To select multiple debug levels, you can either add them or
852 use multiple <tt class="LITERAL">debug</tt> lines.</p>
854 <p>A debug level of 1 is informative because it will show you
855 each request as it happens. <span class="emphasis"><i class=
856 "EMPHASIS">1, 1024, 4096 and 8192 are recommended</i></span> so
857 that you will notice when things go wrong. The other levels are
858 probably only of interest if you are hunting down a specific
859 problem. They can produce a hell of an output (especially
862 <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> used to ship with
863 the debug levels recommended above enabled by default, but due
864 to privacy concerns 3.0.7 and later are configured to only log
867 <p>If you are used to the more verbose settings, simply enable
868 the debug lines below again.</p>
870 <p>If you want to use pure CLF (Common Log Format), you should
871 set <span class="QUOTE">"debug 512"</span> <span class=
872 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">ONLY</i></span> and not enable
875 <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> has a hard-coded
876 limit for the length of log messages. If it's reached, messages
877 are logged truncated and marked with <span class="QUOTE">"...
878 [too long, truncated]"</span>.</p>
880 <p>Please don't file any support requests without trying to
881 reproduce the problem with increased debug level first. Once
882 you read the log messages, you may even be able to solve the
883 problem on your own.</p>
890 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="SINGLE-THREADED" id=
891 "SINGLE-THREADED">7.3.2. single-threaded</a></h4>
893 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
898 <p>Whether to run only one server thread.</p>
901 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
904 <p><span class="emphasis"><i class=
905 "EMPHASIS">None</i></span></p>
908 <dt>Default value:</dt>
911 <p><span class="emphasis"><i class=
912 "EMPHASIS">Unset</i></span></p>
915 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
918 <p>Multi-threaded (or, where unavailable: forked) operation,
919 i.e. the ability to serve multiple requests simultaneously.</p>
925 <p>This option is only there for debugging purposes.
926 <span class="emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">It will drastically
927 reduce performance.</i></span></p>
934 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="HOSTNAME" id="HOSTNAME">7.3.3.
937 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
942 <p>The hostname shown on the CGI pages.</p>
945 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
951 <dt>Default value:</dt>
954 <p><span class="emphasis"><i class=
955 "EMPHASIS">Unset</i></span></p>
958 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
961 <p>The hostname provided by the operating system is used.</p>
967 <p>On some misconfigured systems resolving the hostname fails
968 or takes too much time and slows Privoxy down. Setting a fixed
969 hostname works around the problem.</p>
971 <p>In other circumstances it might be desirable to show a
972 hostname other than the one returned by the operating system.
973 For example if the system has several different hostnames and
974 you don't want to use the first one.</p>
976 <p>Note that Privoxy does not validate the specified hostname
985 <h2 class="SECT2"><a name="ACCESS-CONTROL" id="ACCESS-CONTROL">7.4.
986 Access Control and Security</a></h2>
988 <p>This section of the config file controls the security-relevant
989 aspects of <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>'s
993 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="LISTEN-ADDRESS" id="LISTEN-ADDRESS">7.4.1.
994 listen-address</a></h4>
996 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1001 <p>The address and TCP port on which <span class=
1002 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will listen for client
1006 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1009 <p>[<tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>IP-Address</i></tt>]:<tt class=
1010 "REPLACEABLE"><i>Port</i></tt></p>
1012 <p>[<tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>Hostname</i></tt>]:<tt class=
1013 "REPLACEABLE"><i>Port</i></tt></p>
1016 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1019 <p>127.0.0.1:8118</p>
1022 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1025 <p>Bind to 127.0.0.1 (IPv4 localhost), port 8118. This is
1026 suitable and recommended for home users who run <span class=
1027 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> on the same machine as their
1034 <p>You will need to configure your browser(s) to this proxy
1035 address and port.</p>
1037 <p>If you already have another service running on port 8118, or
1038 if you want to serve requests from other machines (e.g. on your
1039 local network) as well, you will need to override the
1042 <p>You can use this statement multiple times to make
1043 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> listen on more ports
1044 or more <abbr class="ABBREV">IP</abbr> addresses. Suitable if
1045 your operating system does not support sharing <abbr class=
1046 "ABBREV">IPv6</abbr> and <abbr class="ABBREV">IPv4</abbr>
1047 protocols on the same socket.</p>
1049 <p>If a hostname is used instead of an IP address, <span class=
1050 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will try to resolve it to an IP
1051 address and if there are multiple, use the first one
1054 <p>If the address for the hostname isn't already known on the
1055 system (for example because it's in /etc/hostname), this may
1056 result in DNS traffic.</p>
1058 <p>If the specified address isn't available on the system, or
1059 if the hostname can't be resolved, <span class=
1060 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will fail to start.</p>
1062 <p>IPv6 addresses containing colons have to be quoted by
1063 brackets. They can only be used if <span class=
1064 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> has been compiled with IPv6
1065 support. If you aren't sure if your version supports it, have a
1067 "LITERAL">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</tt>.</p>
1069 <p>Some operating systems will prefer IPv6 to IPv4 addresses
1070 even if the system has no IPv6 connectivity which is usually
1071 not expected by the user. Some even rely on DNS to resolve
1072 localhost which mean the "localhost" address used may not
1073 actually be local.</p>
1075 <p>It is therefore recommended to explicitly configure the
1076 intended IP address instead of relying on the operating system,
1077 unless there's a strong reason not to.</p>
1079 <p>If you leave out the address, <span class=
1080 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will bind to all IPv4 interfaces
1081 (addresses) on your machine and may become reachable from the
1082 Internet and/or the local network. Be aware that some GNU/Linux
1083 distributions modify that behaviour without updating the
1084 documentation. Check for non-standard patches if your
1085 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>version behaves
1088 <p>If you configure <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>to
1089 be reachable from the network, consider using <a href=
1090 "config.html#ACLS">access control lists</a> (ACL's, see below),
1091 and/or a firewall.</p>
1093 <p>If you open <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> to
1094 untrusted users, you will also want to make sure that the
1095 following actions are disabled: <tt class="LITERAL"><a href=
1096 "config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions</a></tt>
1097 and <tt class="LITERAL"><a href=
1098 "config.html#ENABLE-REMOTE-TOGGLE">enable-remote-toggle</a></tt></p>
1100 <p>With the exception noted above, listening on multiple
1101 addresses is currently not supported by <span class=
1102 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> directly. It can be done on most
1103 operating systems by letting a packet filter redirect request
1104 for certain addresses to Privoxy, though.</p>
1110 <p>Suppose you are running <span class=
1111 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> on a machine which has the address
1112 192.168.0.1 on your local private network (192.168.0.0) and has
1113 another outside connection with a different address. You want
1114 it to serve requests from inside only:</p>
1116 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
1119 <pre class="PROGRAMLISTING">
1120 listen-address 192.168.0.1:8118
1126 <p>Suppose you are running <span class=
1127 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> on an IPv6-capable machine and you
1128 want it to listen on the IPv6 address of the loopback
1131 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
1134 <pre class="PROGRAMLISTING">
1135 listen-address [::1]:8118
1146 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="TOGGLE" id="TOGGLE">7.4.2. toggle</a></h4>
1148 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1153 <p>Initial state of "toggle" status</p>
1156 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1162 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1168 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1171 <p>Act as if toggled on</p>
1177 <p>If set to 0, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will
1178 start in <span class="QUOTE">"toggled off"</span> mode, i.e.
1179 mostly behave like a normal, content-neutral proxy with both ad
1180 blocking and content filtering disabled. See <tt class=
1181 "LITERAL">enable-remote-toggle</tt> below.</p>
1183 <p>The windows version will only display the toggle icon in the
1184 system tray if this option is present.</p>
1191 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="ENABLE-REMOTE-TOGGLE" id=
1192 "ENABLE-REMOTE-TOGGLE">7.4.3. enable-remote-toggle</a></h4>
1194 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1199 <p>Whether or not the <a href=
1200 "http://config.privoxy.org/toggle" target="_top">web-based
1201 toggle feature</a> may be used</p>
1204 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1210 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1216 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1219 <p>The web-based toggle feature is disabled.</p>
1225 <p>When toggled off, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
1226 mostly acts like a normal, content-neutral proxy, i.e. doesn't
1227 block ads or filter content.</p>
1229 <p>Access to the toggle feature can <span class=
1230 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">not</i></span> be controlled
1231 separately by <span class="QUOTE">"ACLs"</span> or HTTP
1232 authentication, so that everybody who can access <span class=
1233 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> (see <span class=
1234 "QUOTE">"ACLs"</span> and <tt class=
1235 "LITERAL">listen-address</tt> above) can toggle it for all
1236 users. So this option is <span class="emphasis"><i class=
1237 "EMPHASIS">not recommended</i></span> for multi-user
1238 environments with untrusted users.</p>
1240 <p>Note that malicious client side code (e.g Java) is also
1241 capable of using this option.</p>
1243 <p>As a lot of <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> users
1244 don't read documentation, this feature is disabled by
1247 <p>Note that you must have compiled <span class=
1248 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> with support for this feature,
1249 otherwise this option has no effect.</p>
1256 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="ENABLE-REMOTE-HTTP-TOGGLE" id=
1257 "ENABLE-REMOTE-HTTP-TOGGLE">7.4.4. enable-remote-http-toggle</a></h4>
1259 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1264 <p>Whether or not Privoxy recognizes special HTTP headers to
1265 change its behaviour.</p>
1268 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1274 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1280 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1283 <p>Privoxy ignores special HTTP headers.</p>
1289 <p>When toggled on, the client can change <span class=
1290 "APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> behaviour by setting special
1291 HTTP headers. Currently the only supported special header is
1292 <span class="QUOTE">"X-Filter: No"</span>, to disable filtering
1293 for the ongoing request, even if it is enabled in one of the
1296 <p>This feature is disabled by default. If you are using
1297 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> in a environment with
1298 trusted clients, you may enable this feature at your
1299 discretion. Note that malicious client side code (e.g Java) is
1300 also capable of using this feature.</p>
1302 <p>This option will be removed in future releases as it has
1303 been obsoleted by the more general header taggers.</p>
1310 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS" id=
1311 "ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">7.4.5. enable-edit-actions</a></h4>
1313 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1318 <p>Whether or not the <a href=
1319 "http://config.privoxy.org/show-status" target="_top">web-based
1320 actions file editor</a> may be used</p>
1323 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1329 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1335 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1338 <p>The web-based actions file editor is disabled.</p>
1344 <p>Access to the editor can <span class="emphasis"><i class=
1345 "EMPHASIS">not</i></span> be controlled separately by
1346 <span class="QUOTE">"ACLs"</span> or HTTP authentication, so
1347 that everybody who can access <span class=
1348 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> (see <span class=
1349 "QUOTE">"ACLs"</span> and <tt class=
1350 "LITERAL">listen-address</tt> above) can modify its
1351 configuration for all users.</p>
1353 <p>This option is <span class="emphasis"><i class=
1354 "EMPHASIS">not recommended</i></span> for environments with
1355 untrusted users and as a lot of <span class=
1356 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> users don't read documentation,
1357 this feature is disabled by default.</p>
1359 <p>Note that malicious client side code (e.g Java) is also
1360 capable of using the actions editor and you shouldn't enable
1361 this options unless you understand the consequences and are
1362 sure your browser is configured correctly.</p>
1364 <p>Note that you must have compiled <span class=
1365 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> with support for this feature,
1366 otherwise this option has no effect.</p>
1373 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="ENFORCE-BLOCKS" id="ENFORCE-BLOCKS">7.4.6.
1374 enforce-blocks</a></h4>
1376 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1381 <p>Whether the user is allowed to ignore blocks and can
1382 <span class="QUOTE">"go there anyway"</span>.</p>
1385 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1388 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>0 or 1</i></tt></p>
1391 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1394 <p><span class="emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">0</i></span></p>
1397 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1400 <p>Blocks are not enforced.</p>
1406 <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is mainly used to
1407 block and filter requests as a service to the user, for example
1408 to block ads and other junk that clogs the pipes. <span class=
1409 "APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> configuration isn't perfect and
1410 sometimes innocent pages are blocked. In this situation it
1411 makes sense to allow the user to enforce the request and have
1412 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> ignore the block.</p>
1414 <p>In the default configuration <span class=
1415 "APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> <span class=
1416 "QUOTE">"Blocked"</span> page contains a <span class=
1417 "QUOTE">"go there anyway"</span> link to adds a special string
1418 (the force prefix) to the request URL. If that link is used,
1419 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will detect the force
1420 prefix, remove it again and let the request pass.</p>
1422 <p>Of course <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> can also
1423 be used to enforce a network policy. In that case the user
1424 obviously should not be able to bypass any blocks, and that's
1425 what the <span class="QUOTE">"enforce-blocks"</span> option is
1426 for. If it's enabled, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
1427 hides the <span class="QUOTE">"go there anyway"</span> link. If
1428 the user adds the force prefix by hand, it will not be accepted
1429 and the circumvention attempt is logged.</p>
1435 <p>enforce-blocks 1</p>
1442 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="ACLS" id="ACLS">7.4.7. ACLs: permit-access
1443 and deny-access</a></h4><a name="PERMIT-ACCESS" id=
1444 "PERMIT-ACCESS"></a><a name="DENY-ACCESS" id="DENY-ACCESS"></a>
1446 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1451 <p>Who can access what.</p>
1454 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1457 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>src_addr</i></tt>[:<tt class=
1458 "REPLACEABLE"><i>port</i></tt>][/<tt class=
1459 "REPLACEABLE"><i>src_masklen</i></tt>] [<tt class=
1460 "REPLACEABLE"><i>dst_addr</i></tt>[:<tt class=
1461 "REPLACEABLE"><i>port</i></tt>][/<tt class=
1462 "REPLACEABLE"><i>dst_masklen</i></tt>]]</p>
1464 <p>Where <tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>src_addr</i></tt> and
1465 <tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>dst_addr</i></tt> are IPv4 addresses
1466 in dotted decimal notation or valid DNS names, <tt class=
1467 "REPLACEABLE"><i>port</i></tt> is a port number, and <tt class=
1468 "REPLACEABLE"><i>src_masklen</i></tt> and <tt class=
1469 "REPLACEABLE"><i>dst_masklen</i></tt> are subnet masks in CIDR
1470 notation, i.e. integer values from 2 to 30 representing the
1471 length (in bits) of the network address. The masks and the
1472 whole destination part are optional.</p>
1474 <p>If your system implements <a href=
1475 "http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3493" target="_top">RFC
1476 3493</a>, then <tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>src_addr</i></tt> and
1477 <tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>dst_addr</i></tt> can be IPv6
1478 addresses delimeted by brackets, <tt class=
1479 "REPLACEABLE"><i>port</i></tt> can be a number or a service
1480 name, and <tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>src_masklen</i></tt> and
1481 <tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>dst_masklen</i></tt> can be a number
1485 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1488 <p><span class="emphasis"><i class=
1489 "EMPHASIS">Unset</i></span></p>
1491 <p>If no <tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>port</i></tt> is specified,
1492 any port will match. If no <tt class=
1493 "REPLACEABLE"><i>src_masklen</i></tt> or <tt class=
1494 "REPLACEABLE"><i>src_masklen</i></tt> is given, the complete IP
1495 address has to match (i.e. 32 bits for IPv4 and 128 bits for
1499 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1502 <p>Don't restrict access further than implied by <tt class=
1503 "LITERAL">listen-address</tt></p>
1509 <p>Access controls are included at the request of ISPs and
1510 systems administrators, and <span class="emphasis"><i class=
1511 "EMPHASIS">are not usually needed by individual
1512 users</i></span>. For a typical home user, it will normally
1513 suffice to ensure that <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
1514 only listens on the localhost (127.0.0.1) or internal (home)
1515 network address by means of the <a href=
1516 "config.html#LISTEN-ADDRESS"><span class="emphasis"><i class=
1517 "EMPHASIS">listen-address</i></span></a> option.</p>
1519 <p>Please see the warnings in the FAQ that <span class=
1520 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is not intended to be a substitute
1521 for a firewall or to encourage anyone to defer addressing basic
1522 security weaknesses.</p>
1524 <p>Multiple ACL lines are OK. If any ACLs are specified,
1525 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> only talks to IP
1526 addresses that match at least one <tt class=
1527 "LITERAL">permit-access</tt> line and don't match any
1528 subsequent <tt class="LITERAL">deny-access</tt> line. In other
1529 words, the last match wins, with the default being <tt class=
1530 "LITERAL">deny-access</tt>.</p>
1532 <p>If <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is using a
1533 forwarder (see <tt class="LITERAL">forward</tt> below) for a
1534 particular destination URL, the <tt class=
1535 "REPLACEABLE"><i>dst_addr</i></tt> that is examined is the
1536 address of the forwarder and <span class="emphasis"><i class=
1537 "EMPHASIS">NOT</i></span> the address of the ultimate target.
1538 This is necessary because it may be impossible for the local
1539 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> to determine the IP
1540 address of the ultimate target (that's often what gateways are
1543 <p>You should prefer using IP addresses over DNS names, because
1544 the address lookups take time. All DNS names must resolve! You
1545 can <span class="emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">not</i></span>
1546 use domain patterns like <span class="QUOTE">"*.org"</span> or
1547 partial domain names. If a DNS name resolves to multiple IP
1548 addresses, only the first one is used.</p>
1550 <p>Some systems allow IPv4 clients to connect to IPv6 server
1551 sockets. Then the client's IPv4 address will be translated by
1552 the system into IPv6 address space with special prefix
1553 ::ffff:0:0/96 (so called IPv4 mapped IPv6 address).
1554 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> can handle it and maps
1555 such ACL addresses automatically.</p>
1557 <p>Denying access to particular sites by ACL may have undesired
1558 side effects if the site in question is hosted on a machine
1559 which also hosts other sites (most sites are).</p>
1565 <p>Explicitly define the default behavior if no ACL and
1566 <tt class="LITERAL">listen-address</tt> are set: <span class=
1567 "QUOTE">"localhost"</span> is OK. The absence of a <tt class=
1568 "REPLACEABLE"><i>dst_addr</i></tt> implies that <span class=
1569 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">all</i></span> destination
1570 addresses are OK:</p>
1572 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
1575 <pre class="SCREEN">
1576 permit-access localhost
1582 <p>Allow any host on the same class C subnet as www.privoxy.org
1583 access to nothing but www.example.com (or other domains hosted
1584 on the same system):</p>
1586 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
1589 <pre class="SCREEN">
1590 permit-access www.privoxy.org/24 www.example.com/32
1596 <p>Allow access from any host on the 26-bit subnet
1597 192.168.45.64 to anywhere, with the exception that
1598 192.168.45.73 may not access the IP address behind
1599 www.dirty-stuff.example.com:</p>
1601 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
1604 <pre class="SCREEN">
1605 permit-access 192.168.45.64/26
1606 deny-access 192.168.45.73 www.dirty-stuff.example.com
1612 <p>Allow access from the IPv4 network 192.0.2.0/24 even if
1613 listening on an IPv6 wild card address (not supported on all
1616 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
1619 <pre class="PROGRAMLISTING">
1620 permit-access 192.0.2.0/24
1626 <p>This is equivalent to the following line even if listening
1627 on an IPv4 address (not supported on all platforms):</p>
1629 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
1632 <pre class="PROGRAMLISTING">
1633 permit-access [::ffff:192.0.2.0]/120
1644 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="BUFFER-LIMIT" id="BUFFER-LIMIT">7.4.8.
1645 buffer-limit</a></h4>
1647 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1652 <p>Maximum size of the buffer for content filtering.</p>
1655 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1658 <p>Size in Kbytes</p>
1661 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1667 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1670 <p>Use a 4MB (4096 KB) limit.</p>
1676 <p>For content filtering, i.e. the <tt class=
1677 "LITERAL">+filter</tt> and <tt class=
1678 "LITERAL">+deanimate-gif</tt> actions, it is necessary that
1679 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> buffers the entire
1680 document body. This can be potentially dangerous, since a
1681 server could just keep sending data indefinitely and wait for
1682 your RAM to exhaust -- with nasty consequences. Hence this
1685 <p>When a document buffer size reaches the <tt class=
1686 "LITERAL">buffer-limit</tt>, it is flushed to the client
1687 unfiltered and no further attempt to filter the rest of the
1688 document is made. Remember that there may be multiple threads
1689 running, which might require up to <tt class=
1690 "LITERAL">buffer-limit</tt> Kbytes <span class=
1691 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">each</i></span>, unless you have
1692 enabled <span class="QUOTE">"single-threaded"</span> above.</p>
1700 <h2 class="SECT2"><a name="FORWARDING" id="FORWARDING">7.5.
1703 <p>This feature allows routing of HTTP requests through a chain of
1704 multiple proxies.</p>
1706 <p>Forwarding can be used to chain Privoxy with a caching proxy to
1707 speed up browsing. Using a parent proxy may also be necessary if the
1708 machine that <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> runs on has no
1709 direct Internet access.</p>
1711 <p>Note that parent proxies can severely decrease your privacy level.
1712 For example a parent proxy could add your IP address to the request
1713 headers and if it's a caching proxy it may add the <span class=
1714 "QUOTE">"Etag"</span> header to revalidation requests again, even
1715 though you configured Privoxy to remove it. It may also ignore
1716 Privoxy's header time randomization and use the original values which
1717 could be used by the server as cookie replacement to track your steps
1720 <p>Also specified here are SOCKS proxies. <span class=
1721 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> supports the SOCKS 4 and SOCKS 4A
1725 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="FORWARD" id="FORWARD">7.5.1.
1728 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1733 <p>To which parent HTTP proxy specific requests should be
1737 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1740 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>target_pattern</i></tt>
1741 <tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>http_parent</i></tt>[:<tt class=
1742 "REPLACEABLE"><i>port</i></tt>]</p>
1744 <p>where <tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>target_pattern</i></tt> is
1745 a <a href="actions-file.html#AF-PATTERNS">URL pattern</a> that
1746 specifies to which requests (i.e. URLs) this forward rule shall
1747 apply. Use <tt class="LITERAL">/</tt> to denote <span class=
1748 "QUOTE">"all URLs"</span>. <tt class=
1749 "REPLACEABLE"><i>http_parent</i></tt>[:<tt class=
1750 "REPLACEABLE"><i>port</i></tt>] is the DNS name or IP address
1751 of the parent HTTP proxy through which the requests should be
1752 forwarded, optionally followed by its listening port (default:
1753 8000). Use a single dot (<tt class="LITERAL">.</tt>) to denote
1754 <span class="QUOTE">"no forwarding"</span>.</p>
1757 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1760 <p><span class="emphasis"><i class=
1761 "EMPHASIS">Unset</i></span></p>
1764 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1767 <p>Don't use parent HTTP proxies.</p>
1773 <p>If <tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>http_parent</i></tt> is
1774 <span class="QUOTE">"."</span>, then requests are not forwarded
1775 to another HTTP proxy but are made directly to the web
1778 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>http_parent</i></tt> can be a
1779 numerical IPv6 address (if <a href=
1780 "http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3493" target="_top">RFC 3493</a>
1781 is implemented). To prevent clashes with the port delimiter,
1782 the whole IP address has to be put into brackets. On the other
1783 hand a <tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>target_pattern</i></tt>
1784 containing an IPv6 address has to be put into angle brackets
1785 (normal brackets are reserved for regular expressions
1788 <p>Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the
1789 last match wins.</p>
1795 <p>Everything goes to an example parent proxy, except SSL on
1796 port 443 (which it doesn't handle):</p>
1798 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
1801 <pre class="SCREEN">
1802 forward / parent-proxy.example.org:8080
1809 <p>Everything goes to our example ISP's caching proxy, except
1810 for requests to that ISP's sites:</p>
1812 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
1815 <pre class="SCREEN">
1816 forward / caching-proxy.isp.example.net:8000
1817 forward .isp.example.net .
1823 <p>Parent proxy specified by an IPv6 address:</p>
1825 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
1828 <pre class="PROGRAMLISTING">
1829 forward / [2001:DB8::1]:8000
1835 <p>Suppose your parent proxy doesn't support IPv6:</p>
1837 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
1840 <pre class="PROGRAMLISTING">
1841 forward / parent-proxy.example.org:8000
1842 forward ipv6-server.example.org .
1843 forward <[2-3][0-9a-f][0-9a-f][0-9a-f]:*> .
1854 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="SOCKS" id="SOCKS">7.5.2. forward-socks4,
1855 forward-socks4a and forward-socks5</a></h4><a name="FORWARD-SOCKS4"
1856 id="FORWARD-SOCKS4"></a><a name="FORWARD-SOCKS4A" id=
1857 "FORWARD-SOCKS4A"></a>
1859 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1864 <p>Through which SOCKS proxy (and optionally to which parent
1865 HTTP proxy) specific requests should be routed.</p>
1868 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1871 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>target_pattern</i></tt>
1872 <tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>socks_proxy</i></tt>[:<tt class=
1873 "REPLACEABLE"><i>port</i></tt>] <tt class=
1874 "REPLACEABLE"><i>http_parent</i></tt>[:<tt class=
1875 "REPLACEABLE"><i>port</i></tt>]</p>
1877 <p>where <tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>target_pattern</i></tt> is
1878 a <a href="actions-file.html#AF-PATTERNS">URL pattern</a> that
1879 specifies to which requests (i.e. URLs) this forward rule shall
1880 apply. Use <tt class="LITERAL">/</tt> to denote <span class=
1881 "QUOTE">"all URLs"</span>. <tt class=
1882 "REPLACEABLE"><i>http_parent</i></tt> and <tt class=
1883 "REPLACEABLE"><i>socks_proxy</i></tt> are IP addresses in
1884 dotted decimal notation or valid DNS names (<tt class=
1885 "REPLACEABLE"><i>http_parent</i></tt> may be <span class=
1886 "QUOTE">"."</span> to denote <span class="QUOTE">"no HTTP
1887 forwarding"</span>), and the optional <tt class=
1888 "REPLACEABLE"><i>port</i></tt> parameters are TCP ports, i.e.
1889 integer values from 1 to 65535</p>
1892 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1895 <p><span class="emphasis"><i class=
1896 "EMPHASIS">Unset</i></span></p>
1899 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1902 <p>Don't use SOCKS proxies.</p>
1908 <p>Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the
1909 last match wins.</p>
1911 <p>The difference between <tt class=
1912 "LITERAL">forward-socks4</tt> and <tt class=
1913 "LITERAL">forward-socks4a</tt> is that in the SOCKS 4A
1914 protocol, the DNS resolution of the target hostname happens on
1915 the SOCKS server, while in SOCKS 4 it happens locally.</p>
1917 <p>With <tt class="LITERAL">forward-socks5</tt> the DNS
1918 resolution will happen on the remote server as well.</p>
1920 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>socks_proxy</i></tt> and
1921 <tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>http_parent</i></tt> can be a
1922 numerical IPv6 address (if <a href=
1923 "http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3493" target="_top">RFC 3493</a>
1924 is implemented). To prevent clashes with the port delimiter,
1925 the whole IP address has to be put into brackets. On the other
1926 hand a <tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>target_pattern</i></tt>
1927 containing an IPv6 address has to be put into angle brackets
1928 (normal brackets are reserved for regular expressions
1931 <p>If <tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>http_parent</i></tt> is
1932 <span class="QUOTE">"."</span>, then requests are not forwarded
1933 to another HTTP proxy but are made (HTTP-wise) directly to the
1934 web servers, albeit through a SOCKS proxy.</p>
1940 <p>From the company example.com, direct connections are made to
1941 all <span class="QUOTE">"internal"</span> domains, but
1942 everything outbound goes through their ISP's proxy by way of
1943 example.com's corporate SOCKS 4A gateway to the Internet.</p>
1945 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
1948 <pre class="SCREEN">
1949 forward-socks4a / socks-gw.example.com:1080 www-cache.isp.example.net:8080
1950 forward .example.com .
1956 <p>A rule that uses a SOCKS 4 gateway for all destinations but
1957 no HTTP parent looks like this:</p>
1959 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
1962 <pre class="SCREEN">
1963 forward-socks4 / socks-gw.example.com:1080 .
1969 <p>To chain Privoxy and Tor, both running on the same system,
1970 you would use something like:</p>
1972 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
1975 <pre class="SCREEN">
1976 forward-socks5 / 127.0.0.1:9050 .
1982 <p>The public <span class="APPLICATION">Tor</span> network
1983 can't be used to reach your local network, if you need to
1984 access local servers you therefore might want to make some
1987 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
1990 <pre class="SCREEN">
1991 forward 192.168.*.*/ .
1993 forward 127.*.*.*/ .
1999 <p>Unencrypted connections to systems in these address ranges
2000 will be as (un)secure as the local network is, but the
2001 alternative is that you can't reach the local network through
2002 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> at all. Of course this
2003 may actually be desired and there is no reason to make these
2004 exceptions if you aren't sure you need them.</p>
2006 <p>If you also want to be able to reach servers in your local
2007 network by using their names, you will need additional
2008 exceptions that look like this:</p>
2010 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
2013 <pre class="SCREEN">
2014 forward localhost/ .
2025 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="ADVANCED-FORWARDING-EXAMPLES" id=
2026 "ADVANCED-FORWARDING-EXAMPLES">7.5.3. Advanced Forwarding
2029 <p>If you have links to multiple ISPs that provide various special
2030 content only to their subscribers, you can configure multiple
2031 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxies</span> which have connections to
2032 the respective ISPs to act as forwarders to each other, so that
2033 <span class="emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">your</i></span> users can
2034 see the internal content of all ISPs.</p>
2036 <p>Assume that host-a has a PPP connection to isp-a.example.net. And
2037 host-b has a PPP connection to isp-b.example.org. Both run
2038 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>. Their forwarding
2039 configuration can look like this:</p>
2043 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
2046 <pre class="SCREEN">
2048 forward .isp-b.example.net host-b:8118
2056 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
2059 <pre class="SCREEN">
2061 forward .isp-a.example.org host-a:8118
2067 <p>Now, your users can set their browser's proxy to use either host-a
2068 or host-b and be able to browse the internal content of both isp-a
2071 <p>If you intend to chain <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
2072 and <span class="APPLICATION">squid</span> locally, then chaining as
2073 <tt class="LITERAL">browser -> squid -> privoxy</tt> is the
2074 recommended way.</p>
2076 <p>Assuming that <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> and
2077 <span class="APPLICATION">squid</span> run on the same box, your
2078 <span class="APPLICATION">squid</span> configuration could then look
2081 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
2084 <pre class="SCREEN">
2085 # Define Privoxy as parent proxy (without ICP)
2086 cache_peer 127.0.0.1 parent 8118 7 no-query
2088 # Define ACL for protocol FTP
2091 # Do not forward FTP requests to Privoxy
2092 always_direct allow ftp
2094 # Forward all the rest to Privoxy
2095 never_direct allow all
2101 <p>You would then need to change your browser's proxy settings to
2102 <span class="APPLICATION">squid</span>'s address and port. Squid
2103 normally uses port 3128. If unsure consult <tt class=
2104 "LITERAL">http_port</tt> in <tt class="FILENAME">squid.conf</tt>.</p>
2106 <p>You could just as well decide to only forward requests you suspect
2107 of leading to Windows executables through a virus-scanning parent
2108 proxy, say, on <tt class="LITERAL">antivir.example.com</tt>, port
2111 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
2114 <pre class="SCREEN">
2116 forward /.*\.(exe|com|dll|zip)$ antivir.example.com:8010
2124 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="FORWARDED-CONNECT-RETRIES" id=
2125 "FORWARDED-CONNECT-RETRIES">7.5.4. forwarded-connect-retries</a></h4>
2127 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
2132 <p>How often Privoxy retries if a forwarded connection request
2136 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
2139 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>Number of retries.</i></tt></p>
2142 <dt>Default value:</dt>
2145 <p><span class="emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">0</i></span></p>
2148 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
2151 <p>Connections forwarded through other proxies are treated like
2152 direct connections and no retry attempts are made.</p>
2159 "REPLACEABLE"><i>forwarded-connect-retries</i></tt> is mainly
2160 interesting for socks4a connections, where <span class=
2161 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> can't detect why the connections
2162 failed. The connection might have failed because of a DNS
2163 timeout in which case a retry makes sense, but it might also
2164 have failed because the server doesn't exist or isn't
2165 reachable. In this case the retry will just delay the
2166 appearance of Privoxy's error message.</p>
2168 <p>Note that in the context of this option, <span class=
2169 "QUOTE">"forwarded connections"</span> includes all connections
2170 that Privoxy forwards through other proxies. This option is not
2171 limited to the HTTP CONNECT method.</p>
2173 <p>Only use this option, if you are getting lots of
2174 forwarding-related error messages that go away when you try
2175 again manually. Start with a small value and check Privoxy's
2176 logfile from time to time, to see how many retries are usually
2183 <p>forwarded-connect-retries 1</p>
2191 <h2 class="SECT2"><a name="MISC" id="MISC">7.6. Miscellaneous</a></h2>
2194 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="ACCEPT-INTERCEPTED-REQUESTS" id=
2195 "ACCEPT-INTERCEPTED-REQUESTS">7.6.1.
2196 accept-intercepted-requests</a></h4>
2198 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
2203 <p>Whether intercepted requests should be treated as valid.</p>
2206 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
2209 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>0 or 1</i></tt></p>
2212 <dt>Default value:</dt>
2215 <p><span class="emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">0</i></span></p>
2218 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
2221 <p>Only proxy requests are accepted, intercepted requests are
2222 treated as invalid.</p>
2228 <p>If you don't trust your clients and want to force them to
2229 use <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>, enable this
2230 option and configure your packet filter to redirect outgoing
2231 HTTP connections into <span class=
2232 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>.</p>
2234 <p>Make sure that <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span>
2235 own requests aren't redirected as well. Additionally take care
2236 that <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> can't
2237 intentionally connect to itself, otherwise you could run into
2238 redirection loops if <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span>
2239 listening port is reachable by the outside or an attacker has
2240 access to the pages you visit.</p>
2246 <p>accept-intercepted-requests 1</p>
2253 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="ALLOW-CGI-REQUEST-CRUNCHING" id=
2254 "ALLOW-CGI-REQUEST-CRUNCHING">7.6.2.
2255 allow-cgi-request-crunching</a></h4>
2257 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
2262 <p>Whether requests to <span class=
2263 "APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> CGI pages can be blocked or
2267 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
2270 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>0 or 1</i></tt></p>
2273 <dt>Default value:</dt>
2276 <p><span class="emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">0</i></span></p>
2279 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
2282 <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> ignores block and
2283 redirect actions for its CGI pages.</p>
2289 <p>By default <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> ignores
2290 block or redirect actions for its CGI pages. Intercepting these
2291 requests can be useful in multi-user setups to implement
2292 fine-grained access control, but it can also render the
2293 complete web interface useless and make debugging problems
2294 painful if done without care.</p>
2296 <p>Don't enable this option unless you're sure that you really
2303 <p>allow-cgi-request-crunching 1</p>
2310 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="SPLIT-LARGE-FORMS" id=
2311 "SPLIT-LARGE-FORMS">7.6.3. split-large-forms</a></h4>
2313 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
2318 <p>Whether the CGI interface should stay compatible with broken
2322 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
2325 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>0 or 1</i></tt></p>
2328 <dt>Default value:</dt>
2331 <p><span class="emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">0</i></span></p>
2334 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
2337 <p>The CGI form generate long GET URLs.</p>
2343 <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> CGI forms can
2344 lead to rather long URLs. This isn't a problem as far as the
2345 HTTP standard is concerned, but it can confuse clients with
2346 arbitrary URL length limitations.</p>
2348 <p>Enabling split-large-forms causes <span class=
2349 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> to divide big forms into smaller
2350 ones to keep the URL length down. It makes editing a lot less
2351 convenient and you can no longer submit all changes at once,
2352 but at least it works around this browser bug.</p>
2354 <p>If you don't notice any editing problems, there is no reason
2355 to enable this option, but if one of the submit buttons appears
2356 to be broken, you should give it a try.</p>
2362 <p>split-large-forms 1</p>
2369 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="KEEP-ALIVE-TIMEOUT" id=
2370 "KEEP-ALIVE-TIMEOUT">7.6.4. keep-alive-timeout</a></h4>
2372 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
2377 <p>Number of seconds after which an open connection will no
2378 longer be reused.</p>
2381 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
2384 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>Time in seconds.</i></tt></p>
2387 <dt>Default value:</dt>
2393 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
2396 <p>Connections are not kept alive.</p>
2402 <p>This option allows clients to keep the connection to
2403 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> alive. If the server
2404 supports it, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will keep
2405 the connection to the server alive as well. Under certain
2406 circumstances this may result in speed-ups.</p>
2408 <p>By default, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will
2409 close the connection to the server if the client connection
2410 gets closed, or if the specified timeout has been reached
2411 without a new request coming in. This behaviour can be changed
2412 with the <a href="#CONNECTION-SHARING" target=
2413 "_top">connection-sharing</a> option.</p>
2415 <p>This option has no effect if <span class=
2416 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> has been compiled without
2417 keep-alive support.</p>
2419 <p>Note that a timeout of five seconds as used in the default
2420 configuration file significantly decreases the number of
2421 connections that will be reused. The value is used because some
2422 browsers limit the number of connections they open to a single
2423 host and apply the same limit to proxies. This can result in a
2424 single website <span class="QUOTE">"grabbing"</span> all the
2425 connections the browser allows, which means connections to
2426 other websites can't be opened until the connections currently
2427 in use time out.</p>
2429 <p>Several users have reported this as a Privoxy bug, so the
2430 default value has been reduced. Consider increasing it to 300
2431 seconds or even more if you think your browser can handle it.
2432 If your browser appears to be hanging it can't.</p>
2438 <p>keep-alive-timeout 300</p>
2445 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="DEFAULT-SERVER-TIMEOUT" id=
2446 "DEFAULT-SERVER-TIMEOUT">7.6.5. default-server-timeout</a></h4>
2448 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
2453 <p>Assumed server-side keep-alive timeout if not specified by
2457 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
2460 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>Time in seconds.</i></tt></p>
2463 <dt>Default value:</dt>
2469 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
2472 <p>Connections for which the server didn't specify the
2473 keep-alive timeout are not reused.</p>
2479 <p>Enabling this option significantly increases the number of
2480 connections that are reused, provided the <a href=
2481 "#KEEP-ALIVE-TIMEOUT" target="_top">keep-alive-timeout</a>
2482 option is also enabled.</p>
2484 <p>While it also increases the number of connections problems
2485 when <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> tries to reuse a
2486 connection that already has been closed on the server side, or
2487 is closed while <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is
2488 trying to reuse it, this should only be a problem if it happens
2489 for the first request sent by the client. If it happens for
2490 requests on reused client connections, <span class=
2491 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will simply close the connection
2492 and the client is supposed to retry the request without
2493 bothering the user.</p>
2495 <p>Enabling this option is therefore only recommended if the
2496 <a href="#CONNECTION-SHARING" target=
2497 "_top">connection-sharing</a> option is disabled.</p>
2499 <p>It is an error to specify a value larger than the <a href=
2500 "#KEEP-ALIVE-TIMEOUT" target="_top">keep-alive-timeout</a>
2503 <p>This option has no effect if <span class=
2504 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> has been compiled without
2505 keep-alive support.</p>
2511 <p>default-server-timeout 60</p>
2518 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="CONNECTION-SHARING" id=
2519 "CONNECTION-SHARING">7.6.6. connection-sharing</a></h4>
2521 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
2526 <p>Whether or not outgoing connections that have been kept
2527 alive should be shared between different incoming
2531 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
2534 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>0 or 1</i></tt></p>
2537 <dt>Default value:</dt>
2543 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
2546 <p>Connections are not shared.</p>
2552 <p>This option has no effect if <span class=
2553 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> has been compiled without
2554 keep-alive support, or if it's disabled.</p>
2560 <p>Note that reusing connections doesn't necessary cause
2561 speedups. There are also a few privacy implications you should
2564 <p>If this option is effective, outgoing connections are shared
2565 between clients (if there are more than one) and closing the
2566 browser that initiated the outgoing connection does no longer
2567 affect the connection between <span class=
2568 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> and the server unless the client's
2569 request hasn't been completed yet.</p>
2571 <p>If the outgoing connection is idle, it will not be closed
2572 until either <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> or the
2573 server's timeout is reached. While it's open, the server knows
2574 that the system running <span class=
2575 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is still there.</p>
2577 <p>If there are more than one client (maybe even belonging to
2578 multiple users), they will be able to reuse each others
2579 connections. This is potentially dangerous in case of
2580 authentication schemes like NTLM where only the connection is
2581 authenticated, instead of requiring authentication for each
2584 <p>If there is only a single client, and if said client can
2585 keep connections alive on its own, enabling this option has
2586 next to no effect. If the client doesn't support connection
2587 keep-alive, enabling this option may make sense as it allows
2588 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> to keep outgoing
2589 connections alive even if the client itself doesn't support
2592 <p>You should also be aware that enabling this option increases
2593 the likelihood of getting the "No server or forwarder data"
2594 error message, especially if you are using a slow connection to
2597 <p>This option should only be used by experienced users who
2598 understand the risks and can weight them against the
2605 <p>connection-sharing 1</p>
2612 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="SOCKET-TIMEOUT" id="SOCKET-TIMEOUT">7.6.7.
2613 socket-timeout</a></h4>
2615 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
2620 <p>Number of seconds after which a socket times out if no data
2624 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
2627 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>Time in seconds.</i></tt></p>
2630 <dt>Default value:</dt>
2636 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
2639 <p>A default value of 300 seconds is used.</p>
2645 <p>The default is quite high and you probably want to reduce
2646 it. If you aren't using an occasionally slow proxy like Tor,
2647 reducing it to a few seconds should be fine.</p>
2653 <p>socket-timeout 300</p>
2660 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="MAX-CLIENT-CONNECTIONS" id=
2661 "MAX-CLIENT-CONNECTIONS">7.6.8. max-client-connections</a></h4>
2663 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
2668 <p>Maximum number of client connections that will be
2672 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
2675 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>Positive number.</i></tt></p>
2678 <dt>Default value:</dt>
2684 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
2687 <p>Connections are served until a resource limit is
2694 <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> creates one thread
2695 (or process) for every incoming client connection that isn't
2696 rejected based on the access control settings.</p>
2698 <p>If the system is powerful enough, <span class=
2699 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> can theoretically deal with
2700 several hundred (or thousand) connections at the same time, but
2701 some operating systems enforce resource limits by shutting down
2702 offending processes and their default limits may be below the
2703 ones <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> would require
2704 under heavy load.</p>
2706 <p>Configuring <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> to
2707 enforce a connection limit below the thread or process limit
2708 used by the operating system makes sure this doesn't happen.
2709 Simply increasing the operating system's limit would work too,
2710 but if <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> isn't the only
2711 application running on the system, you may actually want to
2712 limit the resources used by <span class=
2713 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>.</p>
2715 <p>If <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is only used by
2716 a single trusted user, limiting the number of client
2717 connections is probably unnecessary. If there are multiple
2718 possibly untrusted users you probably still want to
2719 additionally use a packet filter to limit the maximal number of
2720 incoming connections per client. Otherwise a malicious user
2721 could intentionally create a high number of connections to
2722 prevent other users from using <span class=
2723 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>.</p>
2725 <p>Obviously using this option only makes sense if you choose a
2726 limit below the one enforced by the operating system.</p>
2732 <p>max-client-connections 256</p>
2739 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="HANDLE-AS-EMPTY-DOC-RETURNS-OK" id=
2740 "HANDLE-AS-EMPTY-DOC-RETURNS-OK">7.6.9.
2741 handle-as-empty-doc-returns-ok</a></h4>
2743 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
2748 <p>The status code Privoxy returns for pages blocked with
2749 <tt class="LITERAL"><a href=
2750 "actions-file.html#HANDLE-AS-EMPTY-DOCUMENT" target=
2751 "_top">+handle-as-empty-document</a></tt>.</p>
2754 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
2757 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>0 or 1</i></tt></p>
2760 <dt>Default value:</dt>
2766 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
2769 <p>Privoxy returns a status 403(forbidden) for all blocked
2773 <dt>Effect if set:</dt>
2776 <p>Privoxy returns a status 200(OK) for pages blocked with
2777 +handle-as-empty-document and a status 403(Forbidden) for all
2778 other blocked pages.</p>
2784 <p>This is a work-around for Firefox bug 492459: <span class=
2785 "QUOTE">" Websites are no longer rendered if SSL requests for
2786 JavaScripts are blocked by a proxy. "</span> (<a href=
2787 "https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=492459" target=
2788 "_top">https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=492459</a>)
2789 As the bug has been fixed for quite some time this option
2790 should no longer be needed and will be removed in a future
2791 release. Please speak up if you have a reason why the option
2792 should be kept around.</p>
2799 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="ENABLE-COMPRESSION" id=
2800 "ENABLE-COMPRESSION">7.6.10. enable-compression</a></h4>
2802 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
2807 <p>Whether or not buffered content is compressed before
2811 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
2814 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>0 or 1</i></tt></p>
2817 <dt>Default value:</dt>
2823 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
2826 <p>Privoxy does not compress buffered content.</p>
2829 <dt>Effect if set:</dt>
2832 <p>Privoxy compresses buffered content before delivering it to
2833 the client, provided the client supports it.</p>
2839 <p>This directive is only supported if Privoxy has been
2840 compiled with FEATURE_COMPRESSION, which should not to be
2841 confused with FEATURE_ZLIB.</p>
2843 <p>Compressing buffered content is mainly useful if Privoxy and
2844 the client are running on different systems. If they are
2845 running on the same system, enabling compression is likely to
2846 slow things down. If you didn't measure otherwise, you should
2847 assume that it does and keep this option disabled.</p>
2849 <p>Privoxy will not compress buffered content below a certain
2857 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="COMPRESSION-LEVEL" id=
2858 "COMPRESSION-LEVEL">7.6.11. compression-level</a></h4>
2860 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
2865 <p>The compression level that is passed to the zlib library
2866 when compressing buffered content.</p>
2869 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
2872 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE"><i>Positive number ranging from 0 to
2876 <dt>Default value:</dt>
2885 <p>Compressing the data more takes usually longer than
2886 compressing it less or not compressing it at all. Which level
2887 is best depends on the connection between Privoxy and the
2888 client. If you can't be bothered to benchmark it for yourself,
2889 you should stick with the default and keep compression
2892 <p>If compression is disabled, the compression level is
2899 <table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="90%">
2902 <pre class="SCREEN">
2903 # Best speed (compared to the other levels)
2907 # No compression. Only useful for testing as the added header
2908 # slightly increases the amount of data that has to be sent.
2909 # If your benchmark shows that using this compression level
2910 # is superior to using no compression at all, the benchmark
2911 # is likely to be flawed.
2925 <h2 class="SECT2"><a name="WINDOWS-GUI" id="WINDOWS-GUI">7.7. Windows
2926 GUI Options</a></h2>
2928 <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> has a number of options
2929 specific to the Windows GUI interface:</p><a name="ACTIVITY-ANIMATION"
2930 id="ACTIVITY-ANIMATION"></a>
2932 <p>If <span class="QUOTE">"activity-animation"</span> is set to 1, the
2933 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> icon will animate when
2934 <span class="QUOTE">"Privoxy"</span> is active. To turn off, set to
2937 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT"><tt class="LITERAL"> <span class=
2938 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">activity-animation 1</i></span><br>
2939 </tt></p><a name="LOG-MESSAGES" id=
2942 <p>If <span class="QUOTE">"log-messages"</span> is set to 1,
2943 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will log messages to the
2946 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT"><tt class="LITERAL"> <span class=
2947 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">log-messages 1</i></span><br>
2948 </tt></p><a name="LOG-BUFFER-SIZE" id=
2949 "LOG-BUFFER-SIZE"></a>
2951 <p>If <span class="QUOTE">"log-buffer-size"</span> is set to 1, the
2952 size of the log buffer, i.e. the amount of memory used for the log
2953 messages displayed in the console window, will be limited to
2954 <span class="QUOTE">"log-max-lines"</span> (see below).</p>
2956 <p>Warning: Setting this to 0 will result in the buffer to grow
2957 infinitely and eat up all your memory!</p>
2959 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT"><tt class="LITERAL"> <span class=
2960 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">log-buffer-size 1</i></span><br>
2961 </tt></p><a name="LOG-MAX-LINES" id=
2962 "LOG-MAX-LINES"></a>
2964 <p><span class="APPLICATION">log-max-lines</span> is the maximum number
2965 of lines held in the log buffer. See above.</p>
2967 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT"><tt class="LITERAL"> <span class=
2968 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">log-max-lines 200</i></span><br>
2969 </tt></p><a name="LOG-HIGHLIGHT-MESSAGES" id=
2970 "LOG-HIGHLIGHT-MESSAGES"></a>
2972 <p>If <span class="QUOTE">"log-highlight-messages"</span> is set to 1,
2973 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will highlight portions of the
2974 log messages with a bold-faced font:</p>
2976 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT"><tt class="LITERAL"> <span class=
2977 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">log-highlight-messages 1</i></span><br>
2978 </tt></p><a name="LOG-FONT-NAME" id=
2979 "LOG-FONT-NAME"></a>
2981 <p>The font used in the console window:</p>
2983 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT"><tt class="LITERAL"> <span class=
2984 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">log-font-name Comic Sans
2986 </tt></p><a name="LOG-FONT-SIZE" id=
2987 "LOG-FONT-SIZE"></a>
2989 <p>Font size used in the console window:</p>
2991 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT"><tt class="LITERAL"> <span class=
2992 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">log-font-size 8</i></span><br>
2993 </tt></p><a name="SHOW-ON-TASK-BAR" id=
2994 "SHOW-ON-TASK-BAR"></a>
2996 <p><span class="QUOTE">"show-on-task-bar"</span> controls whether or
2997 not <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will appear as a button on
2998 the Task bar when minimized:</p>
3000 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT"><tt class="LITERAL"> <span class=
3001 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">show-on-task-bar 0</i></span><br>
3002 </tt></p><a name="CLOSE-BUTTON-MINIMIZES" id=
3003 "CLOSE-BUTTON-MINIMIZES"></a>
3005 <p>If <span class="QUOTE">"close-button-minimizes"</span> is set to 1,
3006 the Windows close button will minimize <span class=
3007 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> instead of closing the program (close with
3008 the exit option on the File menu).</p>
3010 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT"><tt class="LITERAL"> <span class=
3011 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">close-button-minimizes 1</i></span><br>
3012 </tt></p><a name="HIDE-CONSOLE" id=
3015 <p>The <span class="QUOTE">"hide-console"</span> option is specific to
3016 the MS-Win console version of <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>.
3017 If this option is used, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will
3018 disconnect from and hide the command console.</p>
3020 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT"><tt class="LITERAL"> #<span class=
3021 "emphasis"><i class="EMPHASIS">hide-console</i></span><br>
3022 </tt></p>
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