privoxy
(1)
Name
privoxy - Privacy Enhancing Proxy
Synopsis
privoxy [--help ] [--version ] [--no-daemon ] [--pidfile
pidfile ] [--user user[.group] ] [--chroot ] [--pre-chroot-
nslookup hostname ] [configfile ]
Description
User Commands PRIVOXY(1)
NAME
privoxy - Privacy Enhancing Proxy
SYNOPSIS
privoxy [--help ] [--version ] [--no-daemon ] [--pidfile
pidfile ] [--user user[.group] ] [--chroot ] [--pre-chroot-
nslookup hostname ] [configfile ]
OPTIONS
Privoxy may be invoked with the following command line
options:
--help
Print brief usage info and exit.
--version
Print version info and exit.
--no-daemon
Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become
process group leader, don't detach from controlling
tty, and do all logging there.
--pidfile pidfile
On startup, write the process ID to pidfile. Delete
the pidfile on exit. Failure to create or delete the
pidfile is non-fatal. If no --pidfile option is given,
no PID file will be used.
--user user[.group]
After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the
user ID of user and the GID of group, or, if the
optional group was not given, the default group of
user. Exit if the privileges are not sufficient to do
so.
--chroot
Before changing to the user ID given in the --user
option, chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make
the kernel pretend to the Privoxy process that the
directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this
can limit the impact of possible vulnerabilities in
Privoxy to the files contained in that hierarchy.
--pre-chroot-nslookup hostname
Initialize the resolver library using hostname before
chroot'ing. On some systems this reduces the number of
files that must be copied into the chroot tree.
If the configfile is not specified on the command line,
Privoxy will look for a file named config in the current
Privoxy 3.0.17 Last change: 13 November 2010 1
User Commands PRIVOXY(1)
directory. If no configfile is found, Privoxy will fail to
start.
DESCRIPTION
Privoxy is a non-caching web proxy with advanced filtering
capabilities for enhancing privacy, modifying web page data
and HTTP headers, controlling access, and removing ads and
other obnoxious Internet junk. Privoxy has a flexible con-
figuration and can be customized to suit individual needs
and tastes. It has application for both stand-alone systems
and multi-user networks.
Privoxy is Free Software and licensed under the GNU GPLv2.
Privoxy is an associated project of Software in the Public
Interest (SPI).
Helping hands and donations are welcome:
o http://www.privoxy.org/faq/general.html#PARTICIPATE
o http://www.privoxy.org/faq/general.html#DONATE
INSTALLATION AND USAGE
Browsers can either be individually configured to use
Privoxy as a HTTP proxy (recommended), or Privoxy can be
combined with a packet filter to build an intercepting proxy
(see config). The default setting is for localhost, on
port 8118 (configurable in the main config file). To set
the HTTP proxy in Firefox, go through: Tools; Options; Gen-
eral; Connection Settings; Manual Proxy Configuration.
For Internet Explorer, go through: Tools; Internet Proper-
ties; Connections; LAN Settings.
The Secure (SSL) Proxy should also be set to the same val-
ues, otherwise https: URLs will not be proxied. Note:
Privoxy can only proxy HTTP and HTTPS traffic. Do not try it
with FTP or other protocols. HTTPS presents some limita-
tions, and not all features will work with HTTPS connec-
tions.
For other browsers, check the documentation.
CONFIGURATION
Privoxy can be configured with the various configuration
files. The default configuration files are: config,
default.filter, default.action and default.action.
user.action should be used for locally defined exceptions to
the default rules in match-all.action and default.action,
and user.filter for locally defined filters. These are well
commented. On Unix and Unix-like systems, these are located
Privoxy 3.0.17 Last change: 13 November 2010 2
User Commands PRIVOXY(1)
in /etc/privoxy/ by default.
Privoxy uses the concept of actions in order to manipulate
the data stream between the browser and remote sites. There
are various actions available with specific functions for
such things as blocking web sites, managing cookies, etc.
These actions can be invoked individually or combined, and
used against individual URLs, or groups of URLs that can be
defined using wildcards and regular expressions. The result
is that the user has greatly enhanced control and freedom.
The actions list (ad blocks, etc) can also be configured
with your web browser at http://config.privoxy.org/ (assum-
ing the configuration allows it). Privoxy's configuration
parameters can also be viewed at the same page. In addi-
tion, Privoxy can be toggled on/off. This is an internal
page, and does not require Internet access.
See the User Manual for a detailed explanation of installa-
tion, general usage, all configuration options, new features
and notes on upgrading.
FILES
/usr/sbin/privoxy
/etc/privoxy/config
/etc/privoxy/match-all.action
/etc/privoxy/default.action
/etc/privoxy/user.action
/etc/privoxy/default.filter
/etc/privoxy/user.filter
/etc/privoxy/trust
/etc/privoxy/templates/*
/var/log/privoxy/logfile
Various other files should be included, but may vary depend-
ing on platform and build configuration. Additional documen-
tation should be included in the local documentation direc-
tory.
SIGNALS
Privoxy terminates on the SIGINT, SIGTERM and SIGABRT sig-
nals. Log rotation scripts may cause a re-opening of the
logfile by sending a SIGHUP to Privoxy. Note that unlike
other daemons, Privoxy does not need to be made aware of
config file changes by SIGHUP -- it will detect them auto-
matically.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following
attributes:
Privoxy 3.0.17 Last change: 13 November 2010 3
User Commands PRIVOXY(1)
+---------------+-------------------+
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+---------------+-------------------+
|Availability | web/proxy/privoxy |
+---------------+-------------------+
|Stability | Committed |
+---------------+-------------------+
NOTES
Please see the User Manual on how to contact the developers,
for feature requests, reporting problems, and other ques-
tions.
SEE ALSO
Other references and sites of interest to Privoxy users:
http://www.privoxy.org/, the Privoxy Home page.
http://www.privoxy.org/faq/, the Privoxy FAQ.
http://www.privoxy.org/developer-manual/, the Privoxy devel-
oper manual.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/, the Project Page
for Privoxy on SourceForge.
http://config.privoxy.org/, the web-based user interface.
Privoxy must be running for this to work. Shortcut:
http://p.p/
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=460288,
to submit ``misses'' and other configuration related sugges-
tions to the developers.
DEVELOPMENT TEAM
Fabian Keil, lead developer
David Schmidt, developer
Hal Burgiss
Mark Miller
Gerry Murphy
Lee Rian
Roland Rosenfeld
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2001-2010 by Privoxy Developers <ijbswa-devel-
[email protected]>
Some source code is based on code Copyright (C) 1997 by
Anonymous Coders and Junkbusters, Inc. and licensed under
the GNU General Public License.
Privoxy 3.0.17 Last change: 13 November 2010 4
User Commands PRIVOXY(1)
LICENSE
Privoxy is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License,
version 2, as published by the Free Software Foundation.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be use-
ful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied war-
ranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PUR-
POSE. See the GNU General Public License for details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU GPL along with
this program; if not, write to the Free Software Founda-
tion, Inc. 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor Boston, MA
02110-1301 USA
This software was built from source available at
https://java.net/projects/solaris-userland. The original
community source was downloaded from http://down-
loads.sourceforge.net/ijbswa/privoxy-3.0.17-stable-
src.tar.gz
Further information about this software can be found on the
open source community website at http://www.privoxy.org/.
Privoxy 3.0.17 Last change: 13 November 2010 5