# Working Behind an ABB Proxy

While working in ABB facilities on a wired LAN or wireless network (ABBGLOBAL), you need to use an ABB Proxy server to access the internet. The proxy allows only for HTTP traffic (TCP port 80). HTTPS (TCP port 443) traffic should bypass the proxy.

# Purpose of the Proxy

There are many system services (daemons) running on your Ubuntu-based Ability Edge SDK VM that need access to the internet. In all ABB locations, direct access to external (non-ABB) resources is not permitted (blocked at the network level). Programs (services) that are capable of using HTTP proxy can communicate when they know a proxy server address and a port.

# Find the Proxy Address

Use a correct proxy server

The ABB proxy server address is country specific. You should only use a proxy server that is correct for your office's location.

Download an automated proxy configuration script (WPAD) that is always available in a well known location:
```
http://wpad.CC.abb.com/wpad.dat
```
where CC is your ISO 2-letter country code. For instance, to get a WPAD script in the USA, download a file at http://wpad.us.abb.com/wpad.dat.
Open the file in your favorite text editor (e.g., Notepad, SubLine, VS Code) and find a line that starts with CWSProxy= near the top of the file.

This line should look something like this:
```
CWSProxy="PROXY accessXXX.cws.sco.cisco.com:8080; PROXY accessYYY.cws.sco.cisco.com:8080";
```
This means that you can use two proxy server addresses to access the internet at your location: accessXXX.cws.sco.cisco.com or accessYYY.cws.sco.cisco.com. Take note on the first one - that's the proxy server address we're going to set in the VM. A number after the colon (here 8080) is a TCP port number the server is listening on.

# Setting Proxy Server in Ubuntu

Super user privileges required

All operations below need super user (root) privileges. Make sure to become root (e.g. by executing sudo -i) before you follow this guide.

Almost all command line programs and daemons (background services) running on Linux take their proxy setting from the environment variables. You can set those globally in the /etc/environment file, to make the OS inject them to every user session and daemon process.

To set ABB HTTP proxy related environmental variables on your VM, edit the /etc/environment file in your favorite text editor (e.g., Nano or Vim) to include the following lines. Change every occurrence of ABB_PROXY with your first ABB proxy server address (see above):

http_proxy="http://ABB_PROXY:8080/"
https_proxy="http://ABB_PROXY:8080/"
ftp_proxy="http://ABB_PROXY:8080/"

# Setting Proxy Server for APT - Ubuntu Package Manager

APT needs a proxy server address to download packages (e.g., operating system updates) from Canonical and third party repositories.

To set the proxy server address for APT, create a text file /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/90abb-proxy with the following content. Change every occurrence of ABB_PROXY with your first ABB proxy server address (see above).

Acquire::http::Proxy "http://ABB_PROXY:8080/";
Acquire::ftp::Proxy "http://ABB_PROXY:8080/";
Acquire::https::Proxy "http://ABB_PROXY:8080/";

← Edge Configuration Parameters APT Package Repository →