[Yum] yum access ftp repos without a proxy, http with proxy

[Les Mikesell]

Gene Smith wrote:
> I have a new situation at work were the proxy server refuses to allow 
> *.rpm files to be downloaded because they are "streaming media". 
> However, direct connect to the internet is allowed (bypassing the proxy) 
> only when ftp is used. So I can set firefox to use the proxy only for 
> http and do direct connect with ftp. This allows rpm files to be 
> downloaded in firefox if they are on ftp servers.
> 
> However, I don't know the correct method to configure yum to do the same 
> thing. There is "proxy" setting that I have set in yum.conf. It appears 
> to cause both http and ftp to use the proxy. Is there a way to tell yum 
> to use the proxy only for http access and to use no proxy when ftp 
> connection is attempted?

It observes the standard environment settings if you don't set a proxy 
in the config file:
export http_proxy=http://your.proxy:port
export ftp_proxy=http://your.proxy:port (if it is squid and can proxy 
ftp through http)
or omit the ftp_proxy setting to go direct.

> I see a possibility of setting
> proxy=_none_
> which could be placed right before baseurl=ftp://.... if a list of 
> explicit urls are used, or maybe after mirrorlist=http://... if a list 
> of mirrors is requested. (http connections require the proxy.)
> 
> I don't have a way to test this now since my current distro (fedora 8) 
> seems to only be archived on 3 http servers and not on ftp. (I can use 
> an external socks server with ssh -D option to download f8 rpms via http 
> using firefox but yum does not support socks connections from what I 
> understand.)

Can you get to an external http proxy via ssh port-forwarding?

ssh -L:port:remote_address:port  -l login remotehost
Then in another window while the ssh connection is up:
  export http_proxy=http://localhost:port
  yum update

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com