1 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
2 "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
6 <meta name="generator" content=
7 "HTML Tidy for Linux/x86 (vers 7 December 2008), see www.w3.org">
9 <title>The Main Configuration File</title>
10 <meta name="GENERATOR" content=
11 "Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.79">
12 <link rel="HOME" title="Privoxy 3.0.18 User Manual" href="index.html">
13 <link rel="PREVIOUS" title="Privoxy Configuration" href=
15 <link rel="NEXT" title="Actions Files" href="actions-file.html">
16 <link rel="STYLESHEET" type="text/css" href="../p_doc.css">
17 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
18 <link rel="STYLESHEET" type="text/css" href="p_doc.css">
19 <style type="text/css">
21 background-color: #EEEEEE;
24 :link { color: #0000FF }
25 :visited { color: #840084 }
26 :active { color: #0000FF }
27 td.c5 {font-weight: bold}
28 table.c4 {background-color: #E0E0E0}
29 tt.c3 {font-style: italic}
30 span.c2 {font-style: italic}
31 hr.c1 {text-align: left}
36 <div class="NAVHEADER">
37 <table summary="Header navigation table" width="100%" border="0"
38 cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
40 <th colspan="3" align="center">Privoxy 3.0.18 User Manual</th>
44 <td width="10%" align="left" valign="bottom"><a href=
45 "configuration.html" accesskey="P">Prev</a></td>
47 <td width="80%" align="center" valign="bottom"></td>
49 <td width="10%" align="right" valign="bottom"><a href=
50 "actions-file.html" accesskey="N">Next</a></td>
53 <hr class="c1" width="100%">
57 <h1 class="SECT1"><a name="CONFIG" id="CONFIG">7. The Main Configuration
60 <p>By default, the main configuration file is named <tt class=
61 "FILENAME">config</tt>, with the exception of Windows, where it is named
62 <tt class="FILENAME">config.txt</tt>. Configuration lines consist of an
63 initial keyword followed by a list of values, all separated by whitespace
64 (any number of spaces or tabs). For example:</p>
66 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT"><tt class="LITERAL"> <span class=
67 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">confdir /etc/privoxy</span></tt></p>
69 <p>Assigns the value <tt class="LITERAL">/etc/privoxy</tt> to the option
70 <tt class="LITERAL">confdir</tt> and thus indicates that the
71 configuration directory is named <span class=
72 "QUOTE">"/etc/privoxy/"</span>.</p>
74 <p>All options in the config file except for <tt class=
75 "LITERAL">confdir</tt> and <tt class="LITERAL">logdir</tt> are optional.
76 Watch out in the below description for what happens if you leave them
79 <p>The main config file controls all aspects of <span class=
80 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>'s operation that are not location dependent
81 (i.e. they apply universally, no matter where you may be surfing). Like
82 the filter and action files, the config file is a plain text file and can
83 be modified with a text editor like emacs, vim or notepad.exe.</p>
86 <h2 class="SECT2"><a name="LOCAL-SET-UP" id="LOCAL-SET-UP">7.1. Local
87 Set-up Documentation</a></h2>
89 <p>If you intend to operate <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
90 for more users than just yourself, it might be a good idea to let them
91 know how to reach you, what you block and why you do that, your
95 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="USER-MANUAL" id="USER-MANUAL">7.1.1.
98 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
103 <p>Location of the <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
107 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
110 <p>A fully qualified URI</p>
113 <dt>Default value:</dt>
116 <p><span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">Unset</span></p>
119 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
122 <p><a href="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/" target=
123 "_top">http://www.privoxy.org/<tt class=
124 "REPLACEABLE c3">version</tt>/user-manual/</a> will be used,
125 where <tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">version</tt> is the
126 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> version.</p>
132 <p>The User Manual URI is the single best source of information
133 on <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>, and is used for
134 help links from some of the internal CGI pages. The manual
135 itself is normally packaged with the binary distributions, so
136 you probably want to set this to a locally installed copy.</p>
140 <p>The best all purpose solution is simply to put the full
141 local <tt class="LITERAL">PATH</tt> to where the <i class=
142 "CITETITLE">User Manual</i> is located:</p>
144 <table class="c4" border="0" width="90%">
148 user-manual /usr/share/doc/privoxy/user-manual
154 <p>The User Manual is then available to anyone with access to
155 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>, by following the
156 built-in URL: <tt class=
157 "LITERAL">http://config.privoxy.org/user-manual/</tt> (or the
159 "LITERAL">http://p.p/user-manual/</tt>).</p>
161 <p>If the documentation is not on the local system, it can be
162 accessed from a remote server, as:</p>
164 <table class="c4" border="0" width="90%">
168 user-manual http://example.com/privoxy/user-manual/
174 <div class="WARNING">
175 <table class="WARNING" border="1" width="90%">
177 <td class="c5" align="center">Warning</td>
182 <p>If set, this option should be <span class=
183 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">the first option in the config
184 file</span>, because it is used while the config file
185 is being read on start-up.</p>
196 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="TRUST-INFO-URL" id="TRUST-INFO-URL">7.1.2.
197 trust-info-url</a></h4>
199 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
204 <p>A URL to be displayed in the error page that users will see
205 if access to an untrusted page is denied.</p>
208 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
214 <dt>Default value:</dt>
217 <p><span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">Unset</span></p>
220 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
223 <p>No links are displayed on the "untrusted" error page.</p>
229 <p>The value of this option only matters if the experimental
230 trust mechanism has been activated. (See <a href=
231 "config.html#TRUSTFILE"><span class=
232 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">trustfile</span></a> below.)</p>
234 <p>If you use the trust mechanism, it is a good idea to write
235 up some on-line documentation about your trust policy and to
236 specify the URL(s) here. Use multiple times for multiple
239 <p>The URL(s) should be added to the trustfile as well, so
240 users don't end up locked out from the information on why they
241 were locked out in the first place!</p>
248 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="ADMIN-ADDRESS" id="ADMIN-ADDRESS">7.1.3.
249 admin-address</a></h4>
251 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
256 <p>An email address to reach the <span class=
257 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> administrator.</p>
260 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
266 <dt>Default value:</dt>
269 <p><span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">Unset</span></p>
272 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
275 <p>No email address is displayed on error pages and the CGI
282 <p>If both <tt class="LITERAL">admin-address</tt> and
283 <tt class="LITERAL">proxy-info-url</tt> are unset, the whole
284 "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will not be
292 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="PROXY-INFO-URL" id="PROXY-INFO-URL">7.1.4.
293 proxy-info-url</a></h4>
295 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
300 <p>A URL to documentation about the local <span class=
301 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> setup, configuration or
305 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
311 <dt>Default value:</dt>
314 <p><span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">Unset</span></p>
317 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
320 <p>No link to local documentation is displayed on error pages
321 and the CGI user interface.</p>
327 <p>If both <tt class="LITERAL">admin-address</tt> and
328 <tt class="LITERAL">proxy-info-url</tt> are unset, the whole
329 "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will not be
332 <p>This URL shouldn't be blocked ;-)</p>
340 <h2 class="SECT2"><a name="CONF-LOG-LOC" id="CONF-LOG-LOC">7.2.
341 Configuration and Log File Locations</a></h2>
343 <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> can (and normally does) use
344 a number of other files for additional configuration, help and logging.
345 This section of the configuration file tells <span class=
346 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> where to find those other files.</p>
348 <p>The user running <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>, must have
349 read permission for all configuration files, and write permission to
350 any files that would be modified, such as log files and actions
354 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="CONFDIR" id="CONFDIR">7.2.1.
357 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
362 <p>The directory where the other configuration files are
366 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
372 <dt>Default value:</dt>
375 <p>/etc/privoxy (Unix) <span class=
376 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">or</span> <span class=
377 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> installation dir (Windows)</p>
380 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
383 <p><span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">Mandatory</span></p>
389 <p>No trailing <span class="QUOTE">"<tt class=
390 "LITERAL">/</tt>"</span>, please.</p>
397 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="TEMPLDIR" id="TEMPLDIR">7.2.2.
400 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
405 <p>An alternative directory where the templates are loaded
409 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
415 <dt>Default value:</dt>
421 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
424 <p>The templates are assumed to be located in
425 confdir/template.</p>
431 <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> original
432 templates are usually overwritten with each update. Use this
433 option to relocate customized templates that should be kept. As
434 template variables might change between updates, you shouldn't
435 expect templates to work with <span class=
436 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> releases other than the one they
437 were part of, though.</p>
444 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="LOGDIR" id="LOGDIR">7.2.3. logdir</a></h4>
446 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
451 <p>The directory where all logging takes place (i.e. where the
452 <tt class="FILENAME">logfile</tt> is located).</p>
455 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
461 <dt>Default value:</dt>
464 <p>/var/log/privoxy (Unix) <span class=
465 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">or</span> <span class=
466 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> installation dir (Windows)</p>
469 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
472 <p><span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">Mandatory</span></p>
478 <p>No trailing <span class="QUOTE">"<tt class=
479 "LITERAL">/</tt>"</span>, please.</p>
486 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="ACTIONSFILE" id="ACTIONSFILE">7.2.4.
487 actionsfile</a></h4><a name="DEFAULT.ACTION" id=
488 "DEFAULT.ACTION"></a><a name="STANDARD.ACTION" id=
489 "STANDARD.ACTION"></a><a name="USER.ACTION" id="USER.ACTION"></a>
491 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
496 <p>The <a href="actions-file.html">actions file(s)</a> to
500 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
503 <p>Complete file name, relative to <tt class=
504 "LITERAL">confdir</tt></p>
507 <dt>Default values:</dt>
514 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT">
515 match-all.action # Actions that are applied to all sites and maybe overruled later on.</p>
521 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT">
522 default.action # Main actions file</p>
528 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT">
529 user.action # User customizations</p>
536 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
539 <p>No actions are taken at all. More or less neutral
546 <p>Multiple <tt class="LITERAL">actionsfile</tt> lines are
547 permitted, and are in fact recommended!</p>
549 <p>The default values are <tt class=
550 "FILENAME">default.action</tt>, which is the <span class=
551 "QUOTE">"main"</span> actions file maintained by the
552 developers, and <tt class="FILENAME">user.action</tt>, where
553 you can make your personal additions.</p>
555 <p>Actions files contain all the per site and per URL
556 configuration for ad blocking, cookie management, privacy
557 considerations, etc. There is no point in using <span class=
558 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> without at least one actions
561 <p>Note that since Privoxy 3.0.7, the complete filename,
562 including the <span class="QUOTE">".action"</span> extension
563 has to be specified. The syntax change was necessary to be
564 consistent with the other file options and to allow previously
565 forbidden characters.</p>
572 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="FILTERFILE" id="FILTERFILE">7.2.5.
573 filterfile</a></h4><a name="DEFAULT.FILTER" id="DEFAULT.FILTER"></a>
575 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
580 <p>The <a href="filter-file.html">filter file(s)</a> to use</p>
583 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
586 <p>File name, relative to <tt class="LITERAL">confdir</tt></p>
589 <dt>Default value:</dt>
592 <p>default.filter (Unix) <span class=
593 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">or</span> default.filter.txt
597 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
600 <p>No textual content filtering takes place, i.e. all
601 <tt class="LITERAL">+<a href=
602 "actions-file.html#FILTER">filter</a>{<tt class=
603 "REPLACEABLE c3">name</tt>}</tt> actions in the actions files
604 are turned neutral.</p>
610 <p>Multiple <tt class="LITERAL">filterfile</tt> lines are
613 <p>The <a href="filter-file.html">filter files</a> contain
614 content modification rules that use <a href=
615 "appendix.html#REGEX">regular expressions</a>. These rules
616 permit powerful changes on the content of Web pages, and
617 optionally the headers as well, e.g., you could try to disable
618 your favorite JavaScript annoyances, re-write the actual
619 displayed text, or just have some fun playing buzzword bingo
622 <p>The <tt class="LITERAL">+<a href=
623 "actions-file.html#FILTER">filter</a>{<tt class=
624 "REPLACEABLE c3">name</tt>}</tt> actions rely on the relevant
625 filter (<tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">name</tt>) to be defined in
628 <p>A pre-defined filter file called <tt class=
629 "FILENAME">default.filter</tt> that contains a number of useful
630 filters for common problems is included in the distribution.
631 See the section on the <tt class="LITERAL"><a href=
632 "actions-file.html#FILTER">filter</a></tt> action for a
635 <p>It is recommended to place any locally adapted filters into
636 a separate file, such as <tt class=
637 "FILENAME">user.filter</tt>.</p>
644 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="LOGFILE" id="LOGFILE">7.2.6.
647 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
652 <p>The log file to use</p>
655 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
658 <p>File name, relative to <tt class="LITERAL">logdir</tt></p>
661 <dt>Default value:</dt>
664 <p><span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">Unset (commented
665 out)</span>. When activated: logfile (Unix) <span class=
666 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">or</span> privoxy.log (Windows).</p>
669 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
672 <p>No logfile is written.</p>
678 <p>The logfile is where all logging and error messages are
679 written. The level of detail and number of messages are set
680 with the <tt class="LITERAL">debug</tt> option (see below). The
681 logfile can be useful for tracking down a problem with
682 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> (e.g., it's not
683 blocking an ad you think it should block) and it can help you
684 to monitor what your browser is doing.</p>
686 <p>Depending on the debug options below, the logfile may be a
687 privacy risk if third parties can get access to it. As most
688 users will never look at it, <span class=
689 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> 3.0.7 and later only log fatal
690 errors by default.</p>
692 <p>For most troubleshooting purposes, you will have to change
693 that, please refer to the debugging section for details.</p>
695 <p>Your logfile will grow indefinitely, and you will probably
696 want to periodically remove it. On Unix systems, you can do
697 this with a cron job (see <span class="QUOTE">"man
698 cron"</span>). For Red Hat based Linux distributions, a
699 <b class="COMMAND">logrotate</b> script has been included.</p>
701 <p>Any log files must be writable by whatever user <span class=
702 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is being run as (on Unix, default
703 user id is <span class="QUOTE">"privoxy"</span>).</p>
710 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="TRUSTFILE" id="TRUSTFILE">7.2.7.
713 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
718 <p>The name of the trust file to use</p>
721 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
724 <p>File name, relative to <tt class="LITERAL">confdir</tt></p>
727 <dt>Default value:</dt>
730 <p><span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">Unset (commented
731 out)</span>. When activated: trust (Unix) <span class=
732 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">or</span> trust.txt (Windows)</p>
735 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
738 <p>The entire trust mechanism is disabled.</p>
744 <p>The trust mechanism is an experimental feature for building
745 white-lists and should be used with care. It is <span class=
746 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">NOT</span> recommended for the casual
749 <p>If you specify a trust file, <span class=
750 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will only allow access to sites
751 that are specified in the trustfile. Sites can be listed in one
754 <p>Prepending a <tt class="LITERAL">~</tt> character limits
755 access to this site only (and any sub-paths within this site),
756 e.g. <tt class="LITERAL">~www.example.com</tt> allows access to
757 <tt class="LITERAL">~www.example.com/features/news.html</tt>,
760 <p>Or, you can designate sites as <span class=
761 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">trusted referrers</span>, by prepending
762 the name with a <tt class="LITERAL">+</tt> character. The
763 effect is that access to untrusted sites will be granted -- but
764 only if a link from this trusted referrer was used to get
765 there. The link target will then be added to the <span class=
766 "QUOTE">"trustfile"</span> so that future, direct accesses will
767 be granted. Sites added via this mechanism do not become
768 trusted referrers themselves (i.e. they are added with a
769 <tt class="LITERAL">~</tt> designation). There is a limit of
770 512 such entries, after which new entries will not be made.</p>
772 <p>If you use the <tt class="LITERAL">+</tt> operator in the
773 trust file, it may grow considerably over time.</p>
775 <p>It is recommended that <span class=
776 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> be compiled with the <tt class=
777 "LITERAL">--disable-force</tt>, <tt class=
778 "LITERAL">--disable-toggle</tt> and <tt class=
779 "LITERAL">--disable-editor</tt> options, if this feature is to
782 <p>Possible applications include limiting Internet access for
791 <h2 class="SECT2"><a name="DEBUGGING" id="DEBUGGING">7.3.
794 <p>These options are mainly useful when tracing a problem. Note that
795 you might also want to invoke <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
796 with the <tt class="LITERAL">--no-daemon</tt> command line option when
800 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="DEBUG" id="DEBUG">7.3.1. debug</a></h4>
802 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
807 <p>Key values that determine what information gets logged.</p>
810 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
813 <p>Integer values</p>
816 <dt>Default value:</dt>
819 <p>0 (i.e.: only fatal errors (that cause Privoxy to exit) are
823 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
826 <p>Default value is used (see above).</p>
832 <p>The available debug levels are:</p>
834 <table class="c4" border="0" width="90%">
837 <pre class="PROGRAMLISTING">
838 debug 1 # Log the destination for each request <span class=
839 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> let through. See also debug 1024.
840 debug 2 # show each connection status
841 debug 4 # show I/O status
842 debug 8 # show header parsing
843 debug 16 # log all data written to the network
844 debug 32 # debug force feature
845 debug 64 # debug regular expression filters
846 debug 128 # debug redirects
847 debug 256 # debug GIF de-animation
848 debug 512 # Common Log Format
849 debug 1024 # Log the destination for requests <span class=
850 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> didn't let through, and the reason why.
851 debug 2048 # CGI user interface
852 debug 4096 # Startup banner and warnings.
853 debug 8192 # Non-fatal errors
854 debug 32768 # log all data read from the network
860 <p>To select multiple debug levels, you can either add them or
861 use multiple <tt class="LITERAL">debug</tt> lines.</p>
863 <p>A debug level of 1 is informative because it will show you
864 each request as it happens. <span class=
865 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">1, 1024, 4096 and 8192 are
866 recommended</span> so that you will notice when things go
867 wrong. The other levels are probably only of interest if you
868 are hunting down a specific problem. They can produce a hell of
869 an output (especially 16).</p>
871 <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> used to ship with
872 the debug levels recommended above enabled by default, but due
873 to privacy concerns 3.0.7 and later are configured to only log
876 <p>If you are used to the more verbose settings, simply enable
877 the debug lines below again.</p>
879 <p>If you want to use pure CLF (Common Log Format), you should
880 set <span class="QUOTE">"debug 512"</span> <span class=
881 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">ONLY</span> and not enable anything
884 <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> has a hard-coded
885 limit for the length of log messages. If it's reached, messages
886 are logged truncated and marked with <span class="QUOTE">"...
887 [too long, truncated]"</span>.</p>
889 <p>Please don't file any support requests without trying to
890 reproduce the problem with increased debug level first. Once
891 you read the log messages, you may even be able to solve the
892 problem on your own.</p>
899 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="SINGLE-THREADED" id=
900 "SINGLE-THREADED">7.3.2. single-threaded</a></h4>
902 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
907 <p>Whether to run only one server thread.</p>
910 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
913 <p><span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">None</span></p>
916 <dt>Default value:</dt>
919 <p><span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">Unset</span></p>
922 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
925 <p>Multi-threaded (or, where unavailable: forked) operation,
926 i.e. the ability to serve multiple requests simultaneously.</p>
932 <p>This option is only there for debugging purposes.
933 <span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">It will drastically reduce
934 performance.</span></p>
941 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="HOSTNAME" id="HOSTNAME">7.3.3.
944 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
949 <p>The hostname shown on the CGI pages.</p>
952 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
958 <dt>Default value:</dt>
961 <p><span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">Unset</span></p>
964 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
967 <p>The hostname provided by the operating system is used.</p>
973 <p>On some misconfigured systems resolving the hostname fails
974 or takes too much time and slows Privoxy down. Setting a fixed
975 hostname works around the problem.</p>
977 <p>In other circumstances it might be desirable to show a
978 hostname other than the one returned by the operating system.
979 For example if the system has several different hostnames and
980 you don't want to use the first one.</p>
982 <p>Note that Privoxy does not validate the specified hostname
991 <h2 class="SECT2"><a name="ACCESS-CONTROL" id="ACCESS-CONTROL">7.4.
992 Access Control and Security</a></h2>
994 <p>This section of the config file controls the security-relevant
995 aspects of <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>'s
999 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="LISTEN-ADDRESS" id="LISTEN-ADDRESS">7.4.1.
1000 listen-address</a></h4>
1002 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1007 <p>The address and TCP port on which <span class=
1008 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will listen for client
1012 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1015 <p>[<tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">IP-Address</tt>]:<tt class=
1016 "REPLACEABLE c3">Port</tt></p>
1018 <p>[<tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">Hostname</tt>]:<tt class=
1019 "REPLACEABLE c3">Port</tt></p>
1022 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1025 <p>127.0.0.1:8118</p>
1028 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1031 <p>Bind to 127.0.0.1 (IPv4 localhost), port 8118. This is
1032 suitable and recommended for home users who run <span class=
1033 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> on the same machine as their
1040 <p>You will need to configure your browser(s) to this proxy
1041 address and port.</p>
1043 <p>If you already have another service running on port 8118, or
1044 if you want to serve requests from other machines (e.g. on your
1045 local network) as well, you will need to override the
1048 <p>You can use this statement multiple times to make
1049 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> listen on more ports
1050 or more <abbr class="ABBREV">IP</abbr> addresses. Suitable if
1051 your operating system does not support sharing <abbr class=
1052 "ABBREV">IPv6</abbr> and <abbr class="ABBREV">IPv4</abbr>
1053 protocols on the same socket.</p>
1055 <p>If a hostname is used instead of an IP address, <span class=
1056 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will try to resolve it to an IP
1057 address and if there are multiple, use the first one
1060 <p>If the address for the hostname isn't already known on the
1061 system (for example because it's in /etc/hostname), this may
1062 result in DNS traffic.</p>
1064 <p>If the specified address isn't available on the system, or
1065 if the hostname can't be resolved, <span class=
1066 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will fail to start.</p>
1068 <p>IPv6 addresses containing colons have to be quoted by
1069 brackets. They can only be used if <span class=
1070 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> has been compiled with IPv6
1071 support. If you aren't sure if your version supports it, have a
1073 "LITERAL">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</tt>.</p>
1075 <p>Some operating systems will prefer IPv6 to IPv4 addresses
1076 even if the system has no IPv6 connectivity which is usually
1077 not expected by the user. Some even rely on DNS to resolve
1078 localhost which mean the "localhost" address used may not
1079 actually be local.</p>
1081 <p>It is therefore recommended to explicitly configure the
1082 intended IP address instead of relying on the operating system,
1083 unless there's a strong reason not to.</p>
1085 <p>If you leave out the address, <span class=
1086 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will bind to all IPv4 interfaces
1087 (addresses) on your machine and may become reachable from the
1088 Internet and/or the local network. Be aware that some GNU/Linux
1089 distributions modify that behaviour without updating the
1090 documentation. Check for non-standard patches if your
1091 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>version behaves
1094 <p>If you configure <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>to
1095 be reachable from the network, consider using <a href=
1096 "config.html#ACLS">access control lists</a> (ACL's, see below),
1097 and/or a firewall.</p>
1099 <p>If you open <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> to
1100 untrusted users, you will also want to make sure that the
1101 following actions are disabled: <tt class="LITERAL"><a href=
1102 "config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions</a></tt>
1103 and <tt class="LITERAL"><a href=
1104 "config.html#ENABLE-REMOTE-TOGGLE">enable-remote-toggle</a></tt></p>
1106 <p>With the exception noted above, listening on multiple
1107 addresses is currently not supported by <span class=
1108 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> directly. It can be done on most
1109 operating systems by letting a packet filter redirect request
1110 for certain addresses to Privoxy, though.</p>
1116 <p>Suppose you are running <span class=
1117 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> on a machine which has the address
1118 192.168.0.1 on your local private network (192.168.0.0) and has
1119 another outside connection with a different address. You want
1120 it to serve requests from inside only:</p>
1122 <table class="c4" border="0" width="90%">
1125 <pre class="PROGRAMLISTING">
1126 listen-address 192.168.0.1:8118
1132 <p>Suppose you are running <span class=
1133 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> on an IPv6-capable machine and you
1134 want it to listen on the IPv6 address of the loopback
1137 <table class="c4" border="0" width="90%">
1140 <pre class="PROGRAMLISTING">
1141 listen-address [::1]:8118
1152 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="TOGGLE" id="TOGGLE">7.4.2. toggle</a></h4>
1154 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1159 <p>Initial state of "toggle" status</p>
1162 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1168 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1174 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1177 <p>Act as if toggled on</p>
1183 <p>If set to 0, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will
1184 start in <span class="QUOTE">"toggled off"</span> mode, i.e.
1185 mostly behave like a normal, content-neutral proxy with both ad
1186 blocking and content filtering disabled. See <tt class=
1187 "LITERAL">enable-remote-toggle</tt> below.</p>
1189 <p>The windows version will only display the toggle icon in the
1190 system tray if this option is present.</p>
1197 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="ENABLE-REMOTE-TOGGLE" id=
1198 "ENABLE-REMOTE-TOGGLE">7.4.3. enable-remote-toggle</a></h4>
1200 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1205 <p>Whether or not the <a href=
1206 "http://config.privoxy.org/toggle" target="_top">web-based
1207 toggle feature</a> may be used</p>
1210 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1216 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1222 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1225 <p>The web-based toggle feature is disabled.</p>
1231 <p>When toggled off, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
1232 mostly acts like a normal, content-neutral proxy, i.e. doesn't
1233 block ads or filter content.</p>
1235 <p>Access to the toggle feature can <span class=
1236 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">not</span> be controlled separately by
1237 <span class="QUOTE">"ACLs"</span> or HTTP authentication, so
1238 that everybody who can access <span class=
1239 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> (see <span class=
1240 "QUOTE">"ACLs"</span> and <tt class=
1241 "LITERAL">listen-address</tt> above) can toggle it for all
1242 users. So this option is <span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">not
1243 recommended</span> for multi-user environments with untrusted
1246 <p>Note that malicious client side code (e.g Java) is also
1247 capable of using this option.</p>
1249 <p>As a lot of <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> users
1250 don't read documentation, this feature is disabled by
1253 <p>Note that you must have compiled <span class=
1254 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> with support for this feature,
1255 otherwise this option has no effect.</p>
1262 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="ENABLE-REMOTE-HTTP-TOGGLE" id=
1263 "ENABLE-REMOTE-HTTP-TOGGLE">7.4.4. enable-remote-http-toggle</a></h4>
1265 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1270 <p>Whether or not Privoxy recognizes special HTTP headers to
1271 change its behaviour.</p>
1274 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1280 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1286 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1289 <p>Privoxy ignores special HTTP headers.</p>
1295 <p>When toggled on, the client can change <span class=
1296 "APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> behaviour by setting special
1297 HTTP headers. Currently the only supported special header is
1298 <span class="QUOTE">"X-Filter: No"</span>, to disable filtering
1299 for the ongoing request, even if it is enabled in one of the
1302 <p>This feature is disabled by default. If you are using
1303 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> in a environment with
1304 trusted clients, you may enable this feature at your
1305 discretion. Note that malicious client side code (e.g Java) is
1306 also capable of using this feature.</p>
1308 <p>This option will be removed in future releases as it has
1309 been obsoleted by the more general header taggers.</p>
1316 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS" id=
1317 "ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">7.4.5. enable-edit-actions</a></h4>
1319 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1324 <p>Whether or not the <a href=
1325 "http://config.privoxy.org/show-status" target="_top">web-based
1326 actions file editor</a> may be used</p>
1329 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1335 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1341 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1344 <p>The web-based actions file editor is disabled.</p>
1350 <p>Access to the editor can <span class=
1351 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">not</span> be controlled separately by
1352 <span class="QUOTE">"ACLs"</span> or HTTP authentication, so
1353 that everybody who can access <span class=
1354 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> (see <span class=
1355 "QUOTE">"ACLs"</span> and <tt class=
1356 "LITERAL">listen-address</tt> above) can modify its
1357 configuration for all users.</p>
1359 <p>This option is <span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">not
1360 recommended</span> for environments with untrusted users and as
1361 a lot of <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> users don't
1362 read documentation, this feature is disabled by default.</p>
1364 <p>Note that malicious client side code (e.g Java) is also
1365 capable of using the actions editor and you shouldn't enable
1366 this options unless you understand the consequences and are
1367 sure your browser is configured correctly.</p>
1369 <p>Note that you must have compiled <span class=
1370 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> with support for this feature,
1371 otherwise this option has no effect.</p>
1378 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="ENFORCE-BLOCKS" id="ENFORCE-BLOCKS">7.4.6.
1379 enforce-blocks</a></h4>
1381 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1386 <p>Whether the user is allowed to ignore blocks and can
1387 <span class="QUOTE">"go there anyway"</span>.</p>
1390 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1393 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">0 or 1</tt></p>
1396 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1399 <p><span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">0</span></p>
1402 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1405 <p>Blocks are not enforced.</p>
1411 <p><span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is mainly used to
1412 block and filter requests as a service to the user, for example
1413 to block ads and other junk that clogs the pipes. <span class=
1414 "APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> configuration isn't perfect and
1415 sometimes innocent pages are blocked. In this situation it
1416 makes sense to allow the user to enforce the request and have
1417 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> ignore the block.</p>
1419 <p>In the default configuration <span class=
1420 "APPLICATION">Privoxy's</span> <span class=
1421 "QUOTE">"Blocked"</span> page contains a <span class=
1422 "QUOTE">"go there anyway"</span> link to adds a special string
1423 (the force prefix) to the request URL. If that link is used,
1424 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will detect the force
1425 prefix, remove it again and let the request pass.</p>
1427 <p>Of course <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> can also
1428 be used to enforce a network policy. In that case the user
1429 obviously should not be able to bypass any blocks, and that's
1430 what the <span class="QUOTE">"enforce-blocks"</span> option is
1431 for. If it's enabled, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
1432 hides the <span class="QUOTE">"go there anyway"</span> link. If
1433 the user adds the force prefix by hand, it will not be accepted
1434 and the circumvention attempt is logged.</p>
1440 <p>enforce-blocks 1</p>
1447 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="ACLS" id="ACLS">7.4.7. ACLs: permit-access
1448 and deny-access</a></h4><a name="PERMIT-ACCESS" id=
1449 "PERMIT-ACCESS"></a><a name="DENY-ACCESS" id="DENY-ACCESS"></a>
1451 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1456 <p>Who can access what.</p>
1459 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1462 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">src_addr</tt>[:<tt class=
1463 "REPLACEABLE c3">port</tt>][/<tt class=
1464 "REPLACEABLE c3">src_masklen</tt>] [<tt class=
1465 "REPLACEABLE c3">dst_addr</tt>[:<tt class=
1466 "REPLACEABLE c3">port</tt>][/<tt class=
1467 "REPLACEABLE c3">dst_masklen</tt>]]</p>
1469 <p>Where <tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">src_addr</tt> and
1470 <tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">dst_addr</tt> are IPv4 addresses in
1471 dotted decimal notation or valid DNS names, <tt class=
1472 "REPLACEABLE c3">port</tt> is a port number, and <tt class=
1473 "REPLACEABLE c3">src_masklen</tt> and <tt class=
1474 "REPLACEABLE c3">dst_masklen</tt> are subnet masks in CIDR
1475 notation, i.e. integer values from 2 to 30 representing the
1476 length (in bits) of the network address. The masks and the
1477 whole destination part are optional.</p>
1479 <p>If your system implements <a href=
1480 "http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3493" target="_top">RFC
1481 3493</a>, then <tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">src_addr</tt> and
1482 <tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">dst_addr</tt> can be IPv6 addresses
1483 delimeted by brackets, <tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">port</tt> can
1484 be a number or a service name, and <tt class=
1485 "REPLACEABLE c3">src_masklen</tt> and <tt class=
1486 "REPLACEABLE c3">dst_masklen</tt> can be a number from 0 to
1490 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1493 <p><span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">Unset</span></p>
1495 <p>If no <tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">port</tt> is specified, any
1496 port will match. If no <tt class=
1497 "REPLACEABLE c3">src_masklen</tt> or <tt class=
1498 "REPLACEABLE c3">src_masklen</tt> is given, the complete IP
1499 address has to match (i.e. 32 bits for IPv4 and 128 bits for
1503 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1506 <p>Don't restrict access further than implied by <tt class=
1507 "LITERAL">listen-address</tt></p>
1513 <p>Access controls are included at the request of ISPs and
1514 systems administrators, and <span class=
1515 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">are not usually needed by individual
1516 users</span>. For a typical home user, it will normally suffice
1517 to ensure that <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> only
1518 listens on the localhost (127.0.0.1) or internal (home) network
1519 address by means of the <a href=
1520 "config.html#LISTEN-ADDRESS"><span class=
1521 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">listen-address</span></a> option.</p>
1523 <p>Please see the warnings in the FAQ that <span class=
1524 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is not intended to be a substitute
1525 for a firewall or to encourage anyone to defer addressing basic
1526 security weaknesses.</p>
1528 <p>Multiple ACL lines are OK. If any ACLs are specified,
1529 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> only talks to IP
1530 addresses that match at least one <tt class=
1531 "LITERAL">permit-access</tt> line and don't match any
1532 subsequent <tt class="LITERAL">deny-access</tt> line. In other
1533 words, the last match wins, with the default being <tt class=
1534 "LITERAL">deny-access</tt>.</p>
1536 <p>If <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> is using a
1537 forwarder (see <tt class="LITERAL">forward</tt> below) for a
1538 particular destination URL, the <tt class=
1539 "REPLACEABLE c3">dst_addr</tt> that is examined is the address
1540 of the forwarder and <span class=
1541 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">NOT</span> the address of the ultimate
1542 target. This is necessary because it may be impossible for the
1543 local <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> to determine the
1544 IP address of the ultimate target (that's often what gateways
1547 <p>You should prefer using IP addresses over DNS names, because
1548 the address lookups take time. All DNS names must resolve! You
1549 can <span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">not</span> use domain
1550 patterns like <span class="QUOTE">"*.org"</span> or partial
1551 domain names. If a DNS name resolves to multiple IP addresses,
1552 only the first one is used.</p>
1554 <p>Some systems allow IPv4 clients to connect to IPv6 server
1555 sockets. Then the client's IPv4 address will be translated by
1556 the system into IPv6 address space with special prefix
1557 ::ffff:0:0/96 (so called IPv4 mapped IPv6 address).
1558 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> can handle it and maps
1559 such ACL addresses automatically.</p>
1561 <p>Denying access to particular sites by ACL may have undesired
1562 side effects if the site in question is hosted on a machine
1563 which also hosts other sites (most sites are).</p>
1569 <p>Explicitly define the default behavior if no ACL and
1570 <tt class="LITERAL">listen-address</tt> are set: <span class=
1571 "QUOTE">"localhost"</span> is OK. The absence of a <tt class=
1572 "REPLACEABLE c3">dst_addr</tt> implies that <span class=
1573 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">all</span> destination addresses are
1576 <table class="c4" border="0" width="90%">
1579 <pre class="SCREEN">
1580 permit-access localhost
1586 <p>Allow any host on the same class C subnet as www.privoxy.org
1587 access to nothing but www.example.com (or other domains hosted
1588 on the same system):</p>
1590 <table class="c4" border="0" width="90%">
1593 <pre class="SCREEN">
1594 permit-access www.privoxy.org/24 www.example.com/32
1600 <p>Allow access from any host on the 26-bit subnet
1601 192.168.45.64 to anywhere, with the exception that
1602 192.168.45.73 may not access the IP address behind
1603 www.dirty-stuff.example.com:</p>
1605 <table class="c4" border="0" width="90%">
1608 <pre class="SCREEN">
1609 permit-access 192.168.45.64/26
1610 deny-access 192.168.45.73 www.dirty-stuff.example.com
1616 <p>Allow access from the IPv4 network 192.0.2.0/24 even if
1617 listening on an IPv6 wild card address (not supported on all
1620 <table class="c4" border="0" width="90%">
1623 <pre class="PROGRAMLISTING">
1624 permit-access 192.0.2.0/24
1630 <p>This is equivalent to the following line even if listening
1631 on an IPv4 address (not supported on all platforms):</p>
1633 <table class="c4" border="0" width="90%">
1636 <pre class="PROGRAMLISTING">
1637 permit-access [::ffff:192.0.2.0]/120
1648 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="BUFFER-LIMIT" id="BUFFER-LIMIT">7.4.8.
1649 buffer-limit</a></h4>
1651 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1656 <p>Maximum size of the buffer for content filtering.</p>
1659 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1662 <p>Size in Kbytes</p>
1665 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1671 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1674 <p>Use a 4MB (4096 KB) limit.</p>
1680 <p>For content filtering, i.e. the <tt class=
1681 "LITERAL">+filter</tt> and <tt class=
1682 "LITERAL">+deanimate-gif</tt> actions, it is necessary that
1683 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> buffers the entire
1684 document body. This can be potentially dangerous, since a
1685 server could just keep sending data indefinitely and wait for
1686 your RAM to exhaust -- with nasty consequences. Hence this
1689 <p>When a document buffer size reaches the <tt class=
1690 "LITERAL">buffer-limit</tt>, it is flushed to the client
1691 unfiltered and no further attempt to filter the rest of the
1692 document is made. Remember that there may be multiple threads
1693 running, which might require up to <tt class=
1694 "LITERAL">buffer-limit</tt> Kbytes <span class=
1695 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">each</span>, unless you have enabled
1696 <span class="QUOTE">"single-threaded"</span> above.</p>
1704 <h2 class="SECT2"><a name="FORWARDING" id="FORWARDING">7.5.
1707 <p>This feature allows routing of HTTP requests through a chain of
1708 multiple proxies.</p>
1710 <p>Forwarding can be used to chain Privoxy with a caching proxy to
1711 speed up browsing. Using a parent proxy may also be necessary if the
1712 machine that <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> runs on has no
1713 direct Internet access.</p>
1715 <p>Note that parent proxies can severely decrease your privacy level.
1716 For example a parent proxy could add your IP address to the request
1717 headers and if it's a caching proxy it may add the <span class=
1718 "QUOTE">"Etag"</span> header to revalidation requests again, even
1719 though you configured Privoxy to remove it. It may also ignore
1720 Privoxy's header time randomization and use the original values which
1721 could be used by the server as cookie replacement to track your steps
1724 <p>Also specified here are SOCKS proxies. <span class=
1725 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> supports the SOCKS 4 and SOCKS 4A
1729 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="FORWARD" id="FORWARD">7.5.1.
1732 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1737 <p>To which parent HTTP proxy specific requests should be
1741 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1744 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">target_pattern</tt> <tt class=
1745 "REPLACEABLE c3">http_parent</tt>[:<tt class=
1746 "REPLACEABLE c3">port</tt>]</p>
1748 <p>where <tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">target_pattern</tt> is a
1749 <a href="actions-file.html#AF-PATTERNS">URL pattern</a> that
1750 specifies to which requests (i.e. URLs) this forward rule shall
1751 apply. Use <tt class="LITERAL">/</tt> to denote <span class=
1752 "QUOTE">"all URLs"</span>. <tt class=
1753 "REPLACEABLE c3">http_parent</tt>[:<tt class=
1754 "REPLACEABLE c3">port</tt>] is the DNS name or IP address of
1755 the parent HTTP proxy through which the requests should be
1756 forwarded, optionally followed by its listening port (default:
1757 8000). Use a single dot (<tt class="LITERAL">.</tt>) to denote
1758 <span class="QUOTE">"no forwarding"</span>.</p>
1761 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1764 <p><span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">Unset</span></p>
1767 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1770 <p>Don't use parent HTTP proxies.</p>
1776 <p>If <tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">http_parent</tt> is
1777 <span class="QUOTE">"."</span>, then requests are not forwarded
1778 to another HTTP proxy but are made directly to the web
1781 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">http_parent</tt> can be a
1782 numerical IPv6 address (if <a href=
1783 "http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3493" target="_top">RFC 3493</a>
1784 is implemented). To prevent clashes with the port delimiter,
1785 the whole IP address has to be put into brackets. On the other
1786 hand a <tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">target_pattern</tt>
1787 containing an IPv6 address has to be put into angle brackets
1788 (normal brackets are reserved for regular expressions
1791 <p>Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the
1792 last match wins.</p>
1798 <p>Everything goes to an example parent proxy, except SSL on
1799 port 443 (which it doesn't handle):</p>
1801 <table class="c4" border="0" width="90%">
1804 <pre class="SCREEN">
1805 forward / parent-proxy.example.org:8080
1812 <p>Everything goes to our example ISP's caching proxy, except
1813 for requests to that ISP's sites:</p>
1815 <table class="c4" border="0" width="90%">
1818 <pre class="SCREEN">
1819 forward / caching-proxy.isp.example.net:8000
1820 forward .isp.example.net .
1826 <p>Parent proxy specified by an IPv6 address:</p>
1828 <table class="c4" border="0" width="90%">
1831 <pre class="PROGRAMLISTING">
1832 forward / [2001:DB8::1]:8000
1838 <p>Suppose your parent proxy doesn't support IPv6:</p>
1840 <table class="c4" border="0" width="90%">
1843 <pre class="PROGRAMLISTING">
1844 forward / parent-proxy.example.org:8000
1845 forward ipv6-server.example.org .
1846 forward <[2-3][0-9a-f][0-9a-f][0-9a-f]:*> .
1857 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="SOCKS" id="SOCKS">7.5.2. forward-socks4,
1858 forward-socks4a and forward-socks5</a></h4><a name="FORWARD-SOCKS4"
1859 id="FORWARD-SOCKS4"></a><a name="FORWARD-SOCKS4A" id=
1860 "FORWARD-SOCKS4A"></a>
1862 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
1867 <p>Through which SOCKS proxy (and optionally to which parent
1868 HTTP proxy) specific requests should be routed.</p>
1871 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
1874 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">target_pattern</tt> <tt class=
1875 "REPLACEABLE c3">socks_proxy</tt>[:<tt class=
1876 "REPLACEABLE c3">port</tt>] <tt class=
1877 "REPLACEABLE c3">http_parent</tt>[:<tt class=
1878 "REPLACEABLE c3">port</tt>]</p>
1880 <p>where <tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">target_pattern</tt> is a
1881 <a href="actions-file.html#AF-PATTERNS">URL pattern</a> that
1882 specifies to which requests (i.e. URLs) this forward rule shall
1883 apply. Use <tt class="LITERAL">/</tt> to denote <span class=
1884 "QUOTE">"all URLs"</span>. <tt class=
1885 "REPLACEABLE c3">http_parent</tt> and <tt class=
1886 "REPLACEABLE c3">socks_proxy</tt> are IP addresses in dotted
1887 decimal notation or valid DNS names (<tt class=
1888 "REPLACEABLE c3">http_parent</tt> may be <span class=
1889 "QUOTE">"."</span> to denote <span class="QUOTE">"no HTTP
1890 forwarding"</span>), and the optional <tt class=
1891 "REPLACEABLE c3">port</tt> parameters are TCP ports, i.e.
1892 integer values from 1 to 65535</p>
1895 <dt>Default value:</dt>
1898 <p><span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">Unset</span></p>
1901 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
1904 <p>Don't use SOCKS proxies.</p>
1910 <p>Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the
1911 last match wins.</p>
1913 <p>The difference between <tt class=
1914 "LITERAL">forward-socks4</tt> and <tt class=
1915 "LITERAL">forward-socks4a</tt> is that in the SOCKS 4A
1916 protocol, the DNS resolution of the target hostname happens on
1917 the SOCKS server, while in SOCKS 4 it happens locally.</p>
1919 <p>With <tt class="LITERAL">forward-socks5</tt> the DNS
1920 resolution will happen on the remote server as well.</p>
1922 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">socks_proxy</tt> and <tt class=
1923 "REPLACEABLE c3">http_parent</tt> can be a numerical IPv6
1924 address (if <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3493"
1925 target="_top">RFC 3493</a> is implemented). To prevent clashes
1926 with the port delimiter, the whole IP address has to be put
1927 into brackets. On the other hand a <tt class=
1928 "REPLACEABLE c3">target_pattern</tt> containing an IPv6 address
1929 has to be put into angle brackets (normal brackets are reserved
1930 for regular expressions already).</p>
1932 <p>If <tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">http_parent</tt> is
1933 <span class="QUOTE">"."</span>, then requests are not forwarded
1934 to another HTTP proxy but are made (HTTP-wise) directly to the
1935 web servers, albeit through a SOCKS proxy.</p>
1941 <p>From the company example.com, direct connections are made to
1942 all <span class="QUOTE">"internal"</span> domains, but
1943 everything outbound goes through their ISP's proxy by way of
1944 example.com's corporate SOCKS 4A gateway to the Internet.</p>
1946 <table class="c4" border="0" width="90%">
1949 <pre class="SCREEN">
1950 forward-socks4a / socks-gw.example.com:1080 www-cache.isp.example.net:8080
1951 forward .example.com .
1957 <p>A rule that uses a SOCKS 4 gateway for all destinations but
1958 no HTTP parent looks like this:</p>
1960 <table class="c4" border="0" width="90%">
1963 <pre class="SCREEN">
1964 forward-socks4 / socks-gw.example.com:1080 .
1970 <p>To chain Privoxy and Tor, both running on the same system,
1971 you would use something like:</p>
1973 <table class="c4" border="0" width="90%">
1976 <pre class="SCREEN">
1977 forward-socks5 / 127.0.0.1:9050 .
1983 <p>The public <span class="APPLICATION">Tor</span> network
1984 can't be used to reach your local network, if you need to
1985 access local servers you therefore might want to make some
1988 <table class="c4" border="0" width="90%">
1991 <pre class="SCREEN">
1992 forward 192.168.*.*/ .
1994 forward 127.*.*.*/ .
2000 <p>Unencrypted connections to systems in these address ranges
2001 will be as (un)secure as the local network is, but the
2002 alternative is that you can't reach the local network through
2003 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> at all. Of course this
2004 may actually be desired and there is no reason to make these
2005 exceptions if you aren't sure you need them.</p>
2007 <p>If you also want to be able to reach servers in your local
2008 network by using their names, you will need additional
2009 exceptions that look like this:</p>
2011 <table class="c4" border="0" width="90%">
2014 <pre class="SCREEN">
2015 forward localhost/ .
2026 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="ADVANCED-FORWARDING-EXAMPLES" id=
2027 "ADVANCED-FORWARDING-EXAMPLES">7.5.3. Advanced Forwarding
2030 <p>If you have links to multiple ISPs that provide various special
2031 content only to their subscribers, you can configure multiple
2032 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxies</span> which have connections to
2033 the respective ISPs to act as forwarders to each other, so that
2034 <span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">your</span> users can see the
2035 internal content of all ISPs.</p>
2037 <p>Assume that host-a has a PPP connection to isp-a.example.net. And
2038 host-b has a PPP connection to isp-b.example.org. Both run
2039 <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>. Their forwarding
2040 configuration can look like this:</p>
2044 <table class="c4" border="0" width="100%">
2047 <pre class="SCREEN">
2049 forward .isp-b.example.net host-b:8118
2057 <table class="c4" border="0" width="100%">
2060 <pre class="SCREEN">
2062 forward .isp-a.example.org host-a:8118
2068 <p>Now, your users can set their browser's proxy to use either host-a
2069 or host-b and be able to browse the internal content of both isp-a
2072 <p>If you intend to chain <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>
2073 and <span class="APPLICATION">squid</span> locally, then chaining as
2074 <tt class="LITERAL">browser -> squid -> privoxy</tt> is the
2075 recommended way.</p>
2077 <p>Assuming that <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> and
2078 <span class="APPLICATION">squid</span> run on the same box, your
2079 <span class="APPLICATION">squid</span> configuration could then look
2082 <table class="c4" border="0" width="100%">
2085 <pre class="SCREEN">
2086 # Define Privoxy as parent proxy (without ICP)
2087 cache_peer 127.0.0.1 parent 8118 7 no-query
2089 # Define ACL for protocol FTP
2092 # Do not forward FTP requests to Privoxy
2093 always_direct allow ftp
2095 # Forward all the rest to Privoxy
2096 never_direct allow all
2102 <p>You would then need to change your browser's proxy settings to
2103 <span class="APPLICATION">squid</span>'s address and port. Squid
2104 normally uses port 3128. If unsure consult <tt class=
2105 "LITERAL">http_port</tt> in <tt class="FILENAME">squid.conf</tt>.</p>
2107 <p>You could just as well decide to only forward requests you suspect
2108 of leading to Windows executables through a virus-scanning parent
2109 proxy, say, on <tt class="LITERAL">antivir.example.com</tt>, port
2112 <table class="c4" border="0" width="100%">
2115 <pre class="SCREEN">
2117 forward /.*\.(exe|com|dll|zip)$ antivir.example.com:8010
2125 <h4 class="SECT3"><a name="FORWARDED-CONNECT-RETRIES" id=
2126 "FORWARDED-CONNECT-RETRIES">7.5.4. forwarded-connect-retries</a></h4>
2128 <div class="VARIABLELIST">
2133 <p>How often Privoxy retries if a forwarded connection request
2137 <dt>Type of value:</dt>
2140 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">Number of retries.</tt></p>
2143 <dt>Default value:</dt>
2146 <p><span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">0</span></p>
2149 <dt>Effect if unset:</dt>
2152 <p>Connections forwarded through other proxies are treated like
2153 direct connections and no retry attempts are made.</p>
2159 <p><tt class="REPLACEABLE c3">forwarded-connect-retries</tt> is
2160 mainly 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 c3">0 or 1</tt></p>
2212 <dt>Default value:</dt>
2215 <p><span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">0</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 c3">0 or 1</tt></p>
2273 <dt>Default value:</dt>
2276 <p><span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">0</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 c3">0 or 1</tt></p>
2328 <dt>Default value:</dt>
2331 <p><span class="emphasis EMPHASIS c2">0</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 c3">Time in seconds.</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 c3">Time in seconds.</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 c3">0 or 1</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 c3">Time in seconds.</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 c3">Positive number.</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 c3">0 or 1</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 c3">0 or 1</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 c3">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 class="c4" border="0" 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 EMPHASIS c2">activity-animation 1</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 EMPHASIS c2">log-messages 1</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 EMPHASIS c2">log-buffer-size 1</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 EMPHASIS c2">log-max-lines 200</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 EMPHASIS c2">log-highlight-messages 1</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 EMPHASIS c2">log-font-name Comic Sans MS</span><br>
2985 </tt></p><a name="LOG-FONT-SIZE" id=
2986 "LOG-FONT-SIZE"></a>
2988 <p>Font size used in the console window:</p>
2990 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT"><tt class="LITERAL"> <span class=
2991 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">log-font-size 8</span><br>
2992 </tt></p><a name="SHOW-ON-TASK-BAR" id=
2993 "SHOW-ON-TASK-BAR"></a>
2995 <p><span class="QUOTE">"show-on-task-bar"</span> controls whether or
2996 not <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will appear as a button on
2997 the Task bar when minimized:</p>
2999 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT"><tt class="LITERAL"> <span class=
3000 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">show-on-task-bar 0</span><br>
3001 </tt></p><a name="CLOSE-BUTTON-MINIMIZES" id=
3002 "CLOSE-BUTTON-MINIMIZES"></a>
3004 <p>If <span class="QUOTE">"close-button-minimizes"</span> is set to 1,
3005 the Windows close button will minimize <span class=
3006 "APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> instead of closing the program (close with
3007 the exit option on the File menu).</p>
3009 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT"><tt class="LITERAL"> <span class=
3010 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">close-button-minimizes 1</span><br>
3011 </tt></p><a name="HIDE-CONSOLE" id=
3014 <p>The <span class="QUOTE">"hide-console"</span> option is specific to
3015 the MS-Win console version of <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span>.
3016 If this option is used, <span class="APPLICATION">Privoxy</span> will
3017 disconnect from and hide the command console.</p>
3019 <p class="LITERALLAYOUT"><tt class="LITERAL"> #<span class=
3020 "emphasis EMPHASIS c2">hide-console</span><br>
3021 </tt></p>
3025 <div class="NAVFOOTER">
3026 <hr class="c1" width="100%">
3028 <table summary="Footer navigation table" width="100%" border="0"
3029 cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
3031 <td width="33%" align="left" valign="top"><a href=
3032 "configuration.html" accesskey="P">Prev</a></td>
3034 <td width="34%" align="center" valign="top"><a href="index.html"
3035 accesskey="H">Home</a></td>
3037 <td width="33%" align="right" valign="top"><a href=
3038 "actions-file.html" accesskey="N">Next</a></td>
3042 <td width="33%" align="left" valign="top">Privoxy Configuration</td>
3044 <td width="34%" align="center" valign="top"> </td>
3046 <td width="33%" align="right" valign="top">Actions Files</td>