Bug#612109: netcfg: Please auto-detect the need for an HTTP proxy
Package: netcfg
Severity: wishlist
Didn't find an existing report for this, so reporting one.
The question asking for an HTTP proxy could instead auto-detect the need
for a proxy by trying to fetch a fixed URI (networkcheck.debian.org?)
and only asking for a proxy if that fails to return the expected content
of that URI. cjwatson suggested that due to the need for timeouts (in
case of firewalls that drop packets rathe than rejecting them), the
detection might need to start asynchronously earlier in the installer,
but even doing it synchronously (and telling the user they can cancel if
they know they need a proxy) seems like an improvement.
Checking for the expected content of that URI would also allow detecting
captive portals. At first this could just warn, but long-term the text
installer could try launching a text-based browser like links2, and the
graphical installer could perhaps embed gtk-webkit. :)
- Josh Triplett
(Sent as a result of discussions on Joey Hess's Debian Party Line.)
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 6.0
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.37-trunk-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.utf8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
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