How-To Make apt-get and wget Use a Proxy Server in Ubuntu 9.04 or later.

Archived from my original blog (2011). Some details may be out of date.

Many times you might find that you need to configure or update a Linux box that is sitting behind a proxy.  In order to make the Ubuntu installation make use of this proxy, you need to tell it to use the proxy by doing the following:

Edit your /etc/environment file

nano /etc/environment

Now insert the following two lines in the file:

http_proxy="http://DOMAIN\username:password@proxy_address:proxy_port"
ftp_proxy="http://DOMAIN\username:password@proxy_address:proxy_port"

Save the file and exit.

Note: You can leave out the Domain, Username and Password sections if your proxy does not requrie any.

Now you need to tell Ubuntu to use these new variables by running the following command:

source /etc/environment

That should do the trick!

Posted in Linux Solutions by NielM 1 Comment