I've been bitten by these problems myself. The API is great, its just the implementation. I wonder how feasible it might be to get them fixed. One simple problem I found on Windows if I remember was when specifying proxy settings in Windows, you can add a list of exceptions. The JDK does pick these up from the registry, but Windows allows you to specify wildcards, such as *.example.com, (see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc939852.aspx, "Using the Proxy Bypass List") The JDK doesnt recognise these, since it just does a simple string comparison. I see these wildcards in corporate setups all the time. I should have filed a bug on this but I guess I got lazy.
In particular the PAC issue, which I think is an important one, but I realise it's also a hard one. I dont know how applets or webstart behave, but say, atleast on Windows, might it be possible to use native APIs like WinHttpGetProxyForURL which attempts to use IE's PAC settings? Or, if you're really game, for a cross platform solution, JDK6+ does bundle Rhino right? Maybe it would possible to roll your own PAC implementation and provide implementations for those Javascript functions isResolvable(), isInNet() etc. Bit of work, but possible? I guess then you'd need a caching layer too. Would be a great project. I think these issues are important. ________________________________ From: net-dev-boun...@openjdk.java.net on behalf of Jean-Christophe Collet Sent: Sat 04/04/2009 18:22 To: Misha Bykov Cc: SIG-SJ; net-dev@openjdk.java.net Subject: Re: Questions from Apple Misha Bykov wrote: > > Apple engineers have some questions about proxy settings in JDK (not > deploy or applets). > > 1) Does the JDK support Automatic proxy configuration (WPAD) ? They know > that applets and Webstart do, but they are interested in standalone > java applications. > No. > 2) Does the JDK support PAC files ? (Again, they know that applets and > webstart does, through the browser settings). No this requires a javascript interpreter which we don't have in standalone JDK. > > 3) On windows, does the JDK (not deploy) actually use the system proxy > settings as defined in control panel ? > > Actually, on Windows, it does not seem to, but they wanted to be sure. > They are aware that we can specify java properties on the command line > to use the proxy as documented here: > > http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/net/properties.html Actually that same document specifies that setting the system property java.net.useSystemProxies to true will do the trick. However in Windows the way we recover the settings might be a bit antiquated (we use registry entries used by I.E.). I think there is a bug/RFE filed on tis. > > In the above list there is no setting for a PAC file or auto-config. > > Is there a contact in the networking team that Apple could get in touch > with? > That would be me, or the rest of the networking team (net-dev@openjdk.java.net) > Thanks, > Misha > > >
