<sect1 id="proxies">

<sect1info>

<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Krishna</firstname>
<surname>Tateneni</surname>
<affiliation><address><email>
tateneni@pluto.njcc.com
</email></address></affiliation>
</author>
</authorgroup>

<date>2001-07-24</date>
<releaseinfo>2.20.00</releaseinfo>

<keywordset>
<keyword>KDE</keyword>
<keyword>KControl</keyword>
<keyword>proxy</keyword>
<keyword>proxies</keyword>
</keywordset>

</sect1info>

<title>Proxies</title>

<sect2 id="proxies-intro">

<title>Introduction</title>

<para>Proxies are programs running on a computer that acts a server on
the network you are connected to (whether by modem or other
means). These programs receive <acronym>HTTP</acronym> and
<acronym>FTP</acronym> requests, retrieve the relevant files from the
internet, and pass them on to the client computer that made the
requests.</para>

<para>When you have configured a proxy, <acronym>HTTP</acronym> and/or
<acronym>FTP</acronym> requests are re-routed through the computer that
is acting as a proxy server.  However, you can also select specific
hosts which should be contacted directly, rather than through the proxy
server. If you are on a local network, for example, access to local
hosts probably doesn't need to go through a proxy server.</para>

<para>You should only need to configure a proxy server if your network
administrator requires it (if you are a dial-up user, that would be your
internet service provider or <acronym>ISP</acronym>). Otherwise,
especially if you are feeling a bit confused about this proxy business,
but everything seems to be fine with your internet connection, you don't
need to change anything.</para>

<para>This module also allows you control the size of the local cache
directory used by &konqueror;. Note that each user account on your
computer has a separate cache directory, and this directory is not
shared with other web browsers such as &Netscape;.</para>

<para>Storing local copies of web pages that you have visited allows
Konqueror to quickly load their contents on subsequent visits. It will
only be necessary to reload the contents from the original site if they
have changed since your last visit, or if you click the reload button in
&konqueror;.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="proxies-use">

<title>Use</title>

<para>The proxy and cache settings are on separate pages.</para>

<para>On the first page, labelled <guilabel>Proxies</guilabel>, you can
see the controls that are related to proxy settings, and on the top left
is a checkbox labeled <guilabel>Use Proxy</guilabel>. If you need to
configure a proxy, you should select this option. When the checkbox is
enabled, you will be able to use the other controls.</para>

<para>The complete addressing information for the proxy includes both
the internet address and a port number. You should enter these into the
relevant text boxes. The arrow button on the right copies the
information from the <guilabel>HTTP</guilabel> line to the
<guilabel>FTP</guilabel> line, in order to help save some typing.</para>

<para>If there are hosts which you can connect to without going through
the proxy server, you can press <guibutton>Add</guibutton> to add the
names of these hosts, separated by in the text box labeled <guilabel>No
Proxy For:</guilabel>. For example, hosts that are on your local network
can probably be contacted directly.</para>

<para>If you are on a network that has a proxy server capable of auto
configuring clients, then you can select the box labelled <guilabel>Auto
Configure Proxy</guilabel>.  Then type in the <acronym>URL</acronym> of
the server.  You will probably need to get this from your Network
Administrator, if you have such a proxy.</para>

<para>On the other page, labelled <guilabel>Cache</guilabel>, you can
see the controls that are related to cache settings. If you really don't
want any of the web pages you visit to be stored on your computer, you
can disable &konqueror;'s disk cache by clearing the checkbox labeled
<guilabel>Use Cache</guilabel></para>

<para>You can set here how aggressively &konqueror; keeps the cache up
to date. <guilabel>Keep Cache in sync</guilabel> means that &konqueror;
will hit the cache for all objects, downloading them if they are not
there, and then display the item from the cache.  <guilabel>Use Cache if
possible</guilabel> means that &konqueror; will try the cache, and if an
object is not there, it will directly download it for display.
<guilabel>Offline Browsing Mode</guilabel> means that &konqueror; will
try the cache, and if an object is not there, it will not attempt to
download it from the internet.</para>

<para>You can control the size of the cache by typing a number into the
text box labeled <guilabel>Average Cache Size</guilabel>.  This is the
average amount of space in kilobytes that the cache directory is allowed
to use. When the cache grows too large, &konqueror; will delete older
files to reduce the size of the cache directory.</para>

<para>This is however, only an average, and during a browsing session
the cache could become substantially larger.</para>

<para>You can use the <guibutton>Clear Cache</guibutton> button to empty
the cache at any time.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="proxies-author">

<title>Section Author</title>

<para>This section written by: </para>
<para>Krishna Tateneni
<email>tateneni@pluto.njcc.com</email>.</para>
<para>Minor update by Mike McBride <email>mpmcbride7@yahoo.com</email></para>
<para>Another update by Lauri Watts <email>lauri@kde.org</email></para>

<!-- TRANS:CREDIT_FOR_TRANSLATORS -->

</sect2>

</sect1>

