MacOS: Signal Desktop should respect system proxy settings

[cmosetick]

Bug Description

Applications should follow the MacOS system network proxy settings. See attached screenshot of system proxy settings control panel in MacOS.

In MacOS network settings, you can configure a Web Proxy, FTP Proxy, SOCKS Proxy, etc.
Most applications seems to respect and follow these System Wide proxy settings.

e.g. Chrome seems to respect this system setting.
Firefox also has its own dedicated control panel for proxy settings.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Configure a functioning proxy server in MacOS system network settings.
2. Test that some application is properly using the system proxy settings.
3. Launch Signal Desktop MacOS Client application. Notice that Signal Desktop is still trying to connect to the MacOS network stack via a direct connection, rather than route traffic through the system proxy settings.

Expected Result

Signal Desktop MacOS client application should respect system proxy settings. All Outbound / Inbound Signal Desktop traffic should be attempted to be routed through the MacOS System proxy settings.

Alternatively, Signal Desktop could behave like Firefox, which has its own internal control panel setting for managing proxy settings.

Platform Info

Signal Desktop Version:
1.34.4

Operating System:

MacOS 10.15.6
Darwin 19.6.0 Darwin Kernel Version 19.6.0: Sun Jul 5 00:43:10 PDT 2020; root:xnu-6153.141.1~9/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64

Linked Device Version:

NA

Link to Debug Log

NA

Screenshots

[tddschn]

This should be a essential feature since many people have trouble accessing Signal servers without using proxy.

[najdanovicivan]

The issue with proxy is related to Chromum engine. Many apps based on chromium are not working correct with proxy.

Additionally there is no way to use anything other than HTTP/HTTPS proxy with chromium

[yourmoonlight]

Any ideas guys?
Since many people need connect signal through proxy ...

[mistercorea]

Even for HTTP/HTTPS proxy shouldn't it be a way to configure? I am in China they recently blocked the app..
If anything it should honor the system proxy setting as defined in the title.

What is the blocker to implementing this?

[mistercorea]

From the quick look, it uses got... maybe we can use something like this??

sindresorhus/got#7

[mistercorea]

@najdanovicivan Can we tackle this problem by got client?

[fgysin]

I'm fairly disappointed that after some 3 years or so this is still an issue (this is not the first bug/feature request)... Makes it impossible to use Signal in company networks.

[hiqua]

Makes it impossible to use Signal in company networks.

To be clear, there seems to already be some support for proxies, e.g. see: #1632 (comment)

[lcoandrade]

Still no good for me. I've just installed Signal v5.9.0 on my enterprise iMac - macOS 10.15.7 (19H1217) - and, even with export all_proxy, it doesn't work behind proxy. Everything else on my iMac works properly.

[muffl0n]

Works for me on Mac with

https_proxy=http://myproxy:8080 open -a "Signal"

[lcoandrade]

Works for me on Mac with

https_proxy=http://myproxy:8080 open -a "Signal"

Thanks! I was trying with export to no avail. Doing it your way works!

[linxucc]

Works for me on Mac with

https_proxy=http://myproxy:8080 open -a "Signal"

Wow! Thanks for this magic one-liners!

That works for me!

[linxucc]

In case anyone need it, I wrapped the magic one-liners into an Apple Automator App, I think for now it's the best way to deal with this issue.

https://github.com/linxucc/Proxy_Signal

It picks system proxy configs automatically and launch signal with it, with Automator, it could looks like a real app in the Application folder.

Works great for me.

[richlv]

Damn. Would be great to link to a specific forum thread discussing this, if feature requests are not properly tracked as issues.

[richlv]

So.

Using system proxies is discussed in https://community.signalusers.org/t/use-system-proxy-support/50594 .
Setting proxy manually is discussed in https://community.signalusers.org/t/allow-configuring-an-http-https-socks-proxy-in-the-ui/10916 .

The existing proxy support is partially broken now and is reported in #6828.

[RealLau]

Works for me on Mac with

https_proxy=http://myproxy:8080 open -a "Signal"

seems not working after v7.5.0

[stevenshea]

Works for me on Mac with

https_proxy=http://myproxy:8080 open -a "Signal"

seems not working after v7.5.0

same issue @7.5.0