How to activate proxy only for specified address?

Question

Level 1

10 points

How to activate proxy only for specified address?

The proxy configuration in 10.5 allows you to specify a list of addresses that will not go through the proxy server. However, I need to setup a list of address that will go through the proxy server and everything else will not use the proxy. I need to use a proxy for identity verification on several sites and for everything else it will actually slow down my internet speed a bit so I don't want to use it. I can manually change the location every time I need to access one of the "special" sites and then change it back to a location without a proxy ( like I'm doing now ) but this proves to be quite annoying and inconvenient.
Does anyone know how I can setup my network to do the routing described above? Installing extra software is not a problem.

Macbook Pro (early '08), Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Jan 29, 2009 6:33 AM

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Answer 1

AshtonB

Level 1

16 points

Mar 17, 2009 3:49 AM in response to cg0def

Create a PAC file that specifies using a proxy for only certain addresses/ranges, and use that to configure the global proxy settings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_auto-config has more information and a few links to tutorials and syntax at the bottom.

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Answer 2

Camelot

Level 9

58,299 points

Jan 29, 2009 9:33 AM in response to cg0def

Hmm, tricky question. I can think of two potential options, although can't quite see the path through one.

One option that will surely work is to use two different browsers. Safari uses the system-wide proxy settings in System Preferences -> Network, while Firefox (and some other browsers) use their own proxy server settings. Therefore one option would be to use Firefox for the proxied sites and Safari for everything else (or vice versa).

The other option that you might be able to get working would be a local proxy server running on your own machine. The proxy server would be configured to fetch certain sites from the existing proxy, while fetching all other sites directly from the server in question. Off hand I can't quite think how to get the access list configured, but I haven't finished my morning coffee yet... 🙂

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Answer 3

cg0def Author

Level 1

10 points

Jan 30, 2009 4:30 AM in response to Camelot

A friend of mine already suggested the 2 browser solution but it's quite messy and I prefer to use it only if nothing else works.

I'll try the local proxy though. If I can figure out how to setup the configuration the solution would work just like what I need.

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