Support proxies and improve proxy performance

[jennifer-shehane]

Problem

There are several users with corporate proxy issues that are faced at several layers of interacting with Cypress including during:

(a checkmark indicates that a fix is in #3531)

• cy.visit()
  • EPROTO Error testing https-hosted site behind proxy #1459
  • Initial visit() is very slow on Angular apps with an external resource #1608
  • [bug]system-proxy exclusion list not used #1312 - described behavior is correct
  • HTTP requests time out when Cypress is executed within Docker and Jenkins #1039 - this timeout will be fixed once we respect proxies, but the error should still be passed through - proxy mishandles network errors #1013
  • Cypress Behind Bluecoat Proxy #939
  • Cypress cannot load pages behind a corporate proxy #672
• npm install
  • npm install not working behind corporate firewall #733
• cypress verify (maybe?)
  • Cypress not running after installing on windows 32bit #787 - not a proxy issue, but the issues described in comments are, and will be fixed
• accessing the 'Runs' tab within the Test Runner
  • When behind corporate proxy - cannot connect to API server in 'Runs' of test runner #1470
• verifying that the server set at baseUrl is running
  • ensureUrl failure (potentially due to corporate proxy usage) #1541

Things that won't be fixed as part of this issue

• PAC support - workarounds exist, see https://on.cypress.io/proxy-configuration
• Handling socks proxy #584 - SOCKS proxy - more in-depth changes would be required to add SOCKS support - workarounds exist, see https://on.cypress.io/proxy-configuration
• Error: unable to get local issuer certificate #1352 - SSL verification issue
• npm postinstall fails behind an HTTPS proxy #1401 - SSL verification issue - NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS not being used in cy download
• Cypress errored trying to serve this file from your server? #1438 - cy proxy hiding the actual issue
• proxy mishandles network errors #1013 - network errors mishandled - related: The underlying proxy should passthrough errors and not self terminate responses #1036
• Cypress fails if ProxyMode Chrome policy is present #1253 (dupe: Cypress cy.visit redirects to HTML and is unable to load main.js / Cypress UI lost #3124, Windows 10 64 bits: How to launch directly Cypress io in command prompt #1468) - system policy - could potentially either bypass (hard) or warn the user (easy) or only allow electron - workarounds exist

Current workarounds:

Setting environment variables

Note: these are NOT cypress environment variables, but system/shell environment variables

• If using Linux, you can read about setting and reading env variables here
• If using Windows, you can read about setting and reading env variables here

Set HTTP_PROXY and/or HTTPS_PROXY to your corporate proxy

HTTP_PROXY=http://my-proxy-address cypress run

Set NO_PROXY for localhost to prevent it from hitting corporate proxy

NO_PROXY=localhost cypress run

Other workarounds

For cy.visit()

• Enable permissions in the Cypress chrome extension
• Check the Chrome ProxyMode if you have administration rights
• Try using Electron

For Download

• Try the direct download if you're having issues during install.
• Workaround for install using CYPRESS_BINARY_VERSION.

For accessing 'Runs' tab in Test Runner

• If you need to set up a project, you have to do it in this tab. Fortunately, you should only need to do this once. Try to do this once outside of the corporate proxy then you should be good to go.

[furnace915]

setting the environment variables was very helpful for the npm install on Mac. thx for workaround

[murugaratham]

Tried setting env using cross-env HTTPS_PROXY=<my corp proxy> as well as HTTP_PROXY, but request to external resource gets http 407. I am using cntlm and set proxy to go through cntlm, but still unable to get CDN resources, e.g. google fonts

[Rende11]

Tried do this:

PROXY_HTTP="http://proxy.adress" PROXY_HTTPS="https://proxy.adress" npx cypress run --spec cypress/integration/ah-ui.js -b chrome

With electron too, added rules in extension, add extension with VPN, added proxy settings in chrome...
but it doesn't work for me - best result - I can open url in new tab.
In Cypress test I receive -

CypressError: cy.visit() failed trying to load:

https://mytestsite

The content-type of the response we received from your web server was:

  > null

This was considered a failure because responses must have content-type: 'text/html'

[tommorganshaw]

I've read everything I can find on this issue and tried every suggested workaround but Cypress still cannot connect to websites through our corporate proxy.

When will this feature be implemented? It is a massive blocker for any possibility of adoption within our team.

[jennifer-shehane]

@Rende11 See this comment regarding null content-type responses #1727 (comment)

[alvarofernandoms]

Did you try to set the corporate proxy into npm config? Like so: https://stackoverflow.com/a/33892578

[cypress-bot]

The code for this is done in cypress-io/cypress#3531, but has yet to be released.
We'll update this issue and reference the changelog when it's released.

[rjd40]

Great to hear this is now pending release! I've recently started piloting Cypress at work with the goal of wider adoption and the speed issues we've been facing as a result of corporate proxy issues are the only thing currently holding us back.

Any idea when this might be released?

[jennifer-shehane]

@rjd40 Soon. We have been working on the release - had to pause to fix some potential regressions in the pre-release. 🤞

[RicardoVaranda]

@jennifer-shehane Thanks for all the hard work on this, I have a quick question will this proxy improvement also include authentication for proxy? We have that use case since our corporate proxies require authentication with username and password.

[flotwig]

@RicardoVaranda Yes, basic proxy authentication will be supported, just pass the proxy like so: http://username:password@your-proxy-server.net

[cypress-bot]

Released in 3.3.0.

[sriram04144]

Cannot believe that setting a proxy can be this difficult :( - I have a corporate PAC file for a proxy and I tried setting the HTTP and HTTPS proxies through command prompt, nothing seems to work.

Agreed, I am not a developer, but the complexity might turn away many testers from setting up Cypress.

[flotwig]

@sriram04144 Have you checked the proxy configuration docs? It explains how to work if all you have is a PAC file. You just need to set HTTP_PROXY to the proxy you need for outbound Internet access.

https://docs.cypress.io/guides/references/proxy-configuration.html

[jennifer-shehane]

This issue will be closed to further comment as the exact issue here was resolved and tested.

If you're experiencing a bug similar to this in Cypress or want enhanced functionality for Proxy support, please open a new issue with a fully reproducible example that we can run or explaining the feature you would like.