Ubuntu
firefox package

firefox wpad.dat report incorrect myIpAddress()

Bug #228850 reported by Ashwin on 2008-05-09

This bug affects 4 people

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	firefox (Ubuntu)	Confirmed	Undecided	Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: firefox

I have a wpad.dat that tries to detect the network based on the myAddress() javascript API specified by wpad standards. It works in windows firefox (and even in IE!). It does not do so in Ubuntu.
The problem is that /etc/hosts lists mymachine.domain.com as 127.0.1.1 and firefox picks up the address from there for myAddress() calls.
I am connected over eth0 and the address is configured correctly. I can access local websites (the internet if I manually configure the proxy)

Test wpad.dat:
function FindProxyForURL(url, host)

{

alert("address:" + myAddress()); // expect 157.254.x.y but got 127.0.1.1
// Direct access

if (
isPlainHostName(host) ||

shExpMatch(host, "157.254.*") )

{

alert(host + ":DIRECT");

return "DIRECT";

}

// Are we inside the jail?????

if (isInNet(myIpAddress(), "157.254.120.0", "255.255.255.0") ) {

alert(host + ":PRIN");

return "PROXY thebadproxy.domain.com:80";

}

// we are in the free world!

alert(host + ":FREE");

return "DIRECT";

}

I understand that the /etc/hosts entry is needed (if network is down etc).

Firefox must pick the address from the interface used in the default route and not by trying to look up mymachine.domain.com. Even if it looks up mymachine.domain.com, it should be a DNS lookup and not from /etc/hosts.

Hope to see this pushed upstream and eventually fixed. There several reports from people not able to access the internet by using automatic proxy configuration. It is because of this.

Tags:

Revision history for this message

Ivar Abrahamsen (flurdy) wrote on 2008-06-20:

Affects automatic proxies and any call myIpAddress()

Changed in firefox:
status:	New → Confirmed

Revision history for this message

Franck78 (fbourdonnec) wrote on 2010-02-08:

Hello,
This bug made me lost 2 hours.

If you (we) want Ubuntu spread in office environement, it is more important to fix it before

bugs such "How to play stream on www.hit967.com"

I started with a student classroom (30 pc) for example and this kind of bug is a full stop (bloquant). No workaround to select proxy based on client location.

Please fix!

Franck

Revision history for this message

Jan Gutter (ubuntu-jangutter) wrote on 2010-05-06:

This bug still affects Lucid Lynx.

I presume the Ubuntu developers are not even interested in passing the bug (or buck) upstream?

Revision history for this message

Matthieu Patou (mat-matws) wrote on 2011-01-22:

test.html Edit (1.6 KiB, text/html)

I would like to add a me too to this bug !

The problem seems very nasty now with 10.10 as network manager insists on adding an entry with the hostname of the machine and 127.0.0.1 so everytime you use the myIpAddress function you have always 127.0.0.1 !

The test.html file attached allow to show the problem more clearly as the original myIpAddress of firefox return the first element of o.getNextAddrAsString() which is, as the test reveal, 127.0.0.1 !
I made a small patch to correct the behavior of firefox, in the 3.6 series you can apply it simply.

In the 4.0 series you have to first locate the omni.jar file, then copy it to omni.zip, make a sub folder, unzip it in the subfolder, apply my patch, recreate a zip file (rm ../omni.zip; zip ../omni.zip -r .) and rename it to omni.jar.

It works for me quite well !
Enjoy !

Revision history for this message

Matthieu Patou (mat-matws) wrote on 2011-01-22:

proxy_ff.patch Edit (698 bytes, text/plain)

The idea of the patch is to skip the 127.0.0.1 ip address.

Another solution might be to return not 1 address with myIpAddress but an array of addresses.

Brian Murray (brian-murray) on 2011-01-22

tags:

added: patch

Revision history for this message

Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson) wrote on 2011-01-22:

Thanks, but this needs to be sent upstream really...

Revision history for this message

Matthieu Patou (mat-matws) wrote on 2011-01-22:

Reported to upstream too, more exactly it's already reported since a couple of years for firefox but it seems that mozilla was not moving a lot on this subject