Proxy Configuration Steps

By default, the Cloud Agent for Unix operates in non-proxy mode. The agent can be configured to use an HTTPS proxy for internet access.

 If the proxy connection fails, then Cloud Agent does not attempt a direct connection outbound (Fail Closed).

Proxy Configuration Paths

Cloud Agent for Unix can be configured to use an HTTPS proxy in one of the following ways:

• /etc/environment
• /etc/sysconfig/qualys-cloud-agent

Proxy Configuration Steps

Perform the following steps to configure the Unix Cloud Agent for using a proxy connection to communicate with our Cloud Platform.

1. Check if the /etc/environment file is available. If it does not exist, create a new /etc/environment file.
2. Add one of the following lines to the /etc/environment file.
   
   To configure the https_proxy variable:
   https_proxy=https://[<username>:<password>@]<host>[:<port>]
   
   To configure the qualys_https_proxy variable:
   qualys_https_proxy=https://[<username>:<password>@]<host>[:<port>]
   
   Where <username> and <password> are specified if the HTTPS proxy uses authentication. If special characters are embedded in the username or password (e.g. @, :, $) they need to be URL-encoded. The <host> tag specifies the proxy server's IPv4 address or FQDN, and the <port> tag specifies the proxy's port number.
   
   If the proxy is specified with the https_proxy environment variable, it will be used for all commands performed by the Cloud Agent. If the proxy is specified with the qualys_https_proxy environment variable, it will only be used by the Cloud Agent to communicate with our cloud platform.

    You can use the Proxy Configuration Encryption Utility to encrypt the user name and password that you provide to the proxy environment variable.

3. Cloud Agent starts after installation.

 The proxy configuration steps for AIX systems are the same as those for Unix-based assets. However, the Proxy Auto-Configuration (PAC) and tls_proxy are not supported for AIX-based systems. Follow the above steps for proxy configuration of any Unix-based system.