Privoxy Man page

## NAME

## SYNOPSIS

           privoxy [--chroot ] [--config-test ] [--help ] [--no-daemon ]
           [--pidfile pidfile ] [--pre-chroot-nslookup hostname ] [--user
           user[.group] ] [--version ] [configfile ]

## OPTIONS

           Privoxy may be invoked with the following command line options:

           --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.

           --config-test
                  Exit after loading the configuration files before binding to the
                  listen address. The exit code signals whether or not the
                  configuration files have been successfully loaded.

                  If the exit code is 1, at least one of the configuration files
                  is invalid, if it is 0, all the configuration files have been
                  successfully loaded (but may still contain errors that can
                  currently only be detected at run time).

                  This option doesn't affect the log setting, combination with
                  "--no-daemon" is recommended if a configured log file shouldn't
                  be used.

           --help Print brief usage 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.

           --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.

           --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

           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:

           â€¢ https://www.privoxy.org/faq/general.html#PARTICIPATE

           â€¢ https://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; General;
           Connection Settings; Manual Proxy Configuration.

           For Internet Explorer, go through: Tools; Internet Properties;
           Connections; LAN Settings.

           The Secure (SSL) Proxy should also be set to the same values, 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 limitations, and not all features will work with HTTPS
           connections.

           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 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/ (assuming the configuration
            /etc/privoxy/user.filter
            /etc/privoxy/trust
            /etc/privoxy/templates/*
            /var/log/privoxy/logfile

           Various other files should be included, but may vary depending on
           platform and build configuration. Additional documentation should be
           included in the local documentation directory.

## SIGNALS

           Privoxy terminates on the SIGINT and SIGTERM signals. 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
           automatically. Signals other than the ones listed above aren't
           explicitly handled and result in the default action defined by the
           operating system.

## NOTES

           This is a beta version of Privoxy. Not all features are well tested.

           Please see the User Manual on how to contact the developers, for
           feature requests, reporting problems, and other questions.

## SEE ALSO

           Other references and sites of interest to Privoxy users:

           https://www.privoxy.org/, the Privoxy Home page.

           https://www.privoxy.org/faq/, the Privoxy FAQ.

           https://www.privoxy.org/developer-manual/, the Privoxy developer
           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 suggestions to the
           developers.

## DEVELOPMENT TEAM

            Fabian Keil, lead developer
            David Schmidt
            Hal Burgiss
            Lee Rian
            Roland Rosenfeld
            Ian Silvester

           Privoxy is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
           ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
           FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the  license for details.

    Privoxy 3.0.25 beta              26 July 2016                       PRIVOXY(1)