Zombie http.proxyHost settings for JVM on OSX

Question

I recently changed network and removed all my HTTP proxy settings from the System Preferences / Networking panel on OSX (Leopard). However, now whenever I use Eclipse the Java HTTP proxy system properties seem to be 'automagically' set to use my now defunct HTTP proxy.

I can find no direct reference to this proxy anywhere on my system, have deleted and reinstalled Eclipse, have monitored the network traffic to rule out any proxy auto configuration, and yet this proxy configuration persists on the Mac OSX JVM.

This is what I see in the Eclipse configuration details:

http.proxyHost=zombie
http.proxyPort=8080
https.proxyHost=zombie
https.proxyPort=8080

I can work around this by manually configuring a proxy with no host name or port in the Eclipse preferences, but this doesn't seem to stick and the zombie system proxy eventually rises from the dead.

Personally I think that this is some kind of Apple JVM bug - but can anyone tell me how I can kill these zombie HTTP proxy settings for good without reinstalling my operating system?

Answer 1

You reinstall eclipse, but did you:

• removed your old workspace ?
• have any environment variable like:
  set JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS% -Dhttp.proxyHost=host.example.com -Dhttp.proxyHost=7777
• observed the java process of your eclipse, to see if it was executed with options like:
  java -classpath ./bin -Dhttp.proxyHost=webcache.mydomain.com -Dhttp.proxyPort=8080 -Dhttp.noProxyHosts=”localhost|host.mydomain.com”

Answer 2

Check the values in

/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Home/lib/net.properties

There are comments in that file saying proxy settings (from net.properties) are used only if there are no proxy settings in System Preferences. I'm wondering if something updated your net.properties file, setting proxy info. Now that you have no proxy settings (in System Preferences), the values in net.properties are actually being used.

Answer 3

I'm dealing with the same sort of problem except I'm on Kubuntu 8.04. and Eclipse 3.4.2 I had to use a proxy for work but have migrated off it. I've reset everything in my environment I can find inside and outside Eclipse to get rid of setting a proxy. However when I try to use the Software Update feature I find it's still using the proxy. In the error log I can see:

!ENTRY org.eclipse.core.net 1 0 2009-03-17 10:49:50.137 !MESSAGE System property http.proxyHost has been set to netproxy.blah.com by an external source. This value will be overwritten using the values from the preferences

!ENTRY org.eclipse.core.net 1 0 2009-03-17 10:49:50.164 !MESSAGE System property http.proxyPort has been set to 3128 by an external source. This value will be overwritten using the values from the preferences

Any ideas I what the external source might be that's setting this property?