A number of tests in the networking area invoke the no-args URL::openConnection. If support for system proxies is enabled, the default on macOS, then the built-in http(s) and ftp protocol handlers may attempt to make a connection to a proxy. In almost all cases, this is the wrong thing for the test to do. Typically, the test is exercising something in the protocol handler implementation, rather than proxy support ( there are other tests that exercise proxy support ). This is an accidental dependency.
In many cases the connection to the system configured proxy may be benign, but not always, it depends. Such accidental dependencies should be remove, since they serve little purpose and could negatively affect test stability. Webrev: http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~chegar/8231504/webrev.00/ This change may not address all such scenarios in the tests, but it does address a large number of them ( as observed when running on my local system with a promiscuous proxy configured ). We've done similar efforts in the past. -Chris.
