From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

I'm trying to get lynx to use my host machine as a proxy server, because certain sites don't work from my home IP address (Thanks to AI bots and CloudFlare and other modern Internet BS!).

I think I have the lynx side right, but I'm not sure about the ssh side.

My reading of "man ssh" tells me that I should be able to do (on my local machine):

$ ssh -D 3281 <host>

and this should setup a SOCKS4/5 server on the host (as well as getting you
to a shell prompt on the host).

While that is running, I do (on my local machine):

$ http_proxy=http://localhost:3281 lynx http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gawk/2026-04/index.html

And I get (Note: I have verified with "lsof" that the "ssh" process is listening on port 3281):

--- Cut Here ---
Looking up localhost:3281
Making HTTP connection to localhost:3281
Sending HTTP request.
HTTP request sent; waiting for response.
Alert!: Unexpected network read error; connection aborted.
Can't Access
`http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gawk/2026-04/index.html'
Alert!: Unable to access document.

lynx: Can't access startfile
Status: 1
$
--- Cut Here ---

Just for completeness, I then logged out of the "ssh -D" connection (thus removing the listening process on port 3281) and did it again:

--- Cut Here ---
$ http_proxy=http://localhost:3281 lynx http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gawk/2026-04/index.html

Looking up localhost:3281
Making HTTP connection to localhost:3281
Alert!: Unable to connect to remote host.

lynx: Can't access startfile http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gawk/2026-04/index.html
Status: 1
$
--- Cut Here ---

So, it is pretty clear that in the first case, it is finding something, but failing to complete. I think I am missing something in either the "ssh" command or on the host machine.

Can anyone help? Note that I got most of my info from digging into the
Lynx documentation (not the man page - the man page doesn't tell you much
other than to look in the Lynx Users Guide - which is an html file stored
in /usr/share/doc). The "ssh" info came from "man ssh".

Note: It sounds like maybe I need to be running some kind of proxy server (beyond what "ssh" provides) on the host; can anyone suggest one?
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) writes:

$ ssh -D 3281 <host>
$ http_proxy=http://localhost:3281 lynx ...

A SOCKS proxy isn't the same as an HTTP proxy - with the latter, you
just send HTTP requests to it, whereas SOCKS is a different protocol. If
you want Lynx to connect via a SOCKS proxy, you can say:

lynx -socks5_proxy localhost:3281 ...
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Adam Sampson <ats@offog.org> <http://offog.org/>
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

In article <y2aa4vau84n.fsf@offog.org>, Adam Sampson <ats@offog.org> wrote: >gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) writes:

$ ssh -D 3281 <host>
$ http_proxy=http://localhost:3281 lynx ...

A SOCKS proxy isn't the same as an HTTP proxy - with the latter, you
just send HTTP requests to it, whereas SOCKS is a different protocol. If
you want Lynx to connect via a SOCKS proxy, you can say:

lynx -socks5_proxy localhost:3281 ...

Thanks for the response; looks like some progress is being made, but we're
not there yet.

My version of lynx doesn't have -socks5_proxy; using it (as shown above) generates a "usage error screen" and there is no mention of it in "man lynx".

Out of curiosity, is it possible to get the same effect using an
environment variable?

Note that "man lynx" has this to say:

--- Cut Here ---
Depending on your system configuration and
supported protocols, the environment variables
recognized by lynx may include

cso_proxy
finger_proxy
ftp_proxy
gopher_proxy
http_proxy
https_proxy
news_proxy
newspost_proxy
newsreply_proxy
nntp_proxy
no_proxy
rlogin_proxy
snews_proxy
snewspost_proxy
snewsreply_proxy
telnet_proxy
tn3270_proxy
wais_proxy

See Lynx Users Guide for additional details and...

--- Cut Here ---

Now, it turns out that "man lynx" on the host system *DOES* mention -socks5_proxy.

So, it begins to look like the version (of lynx) I have on my local machine
is either too old and wasn't compiled with SOCKS support. Looks like I may need to do a self-compile of lynx and see if that helps.

Is there any easy way to tell conclusively whether or not a given version
of lynx has SOCKS support?

ObEditorial: It would be strange for the distro managers to compile it
without SOCKS support. I mean, like, why bother to save a few kb of disk space...? But, stranger things have happened...
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:

So, it begins to look like the version (of lynx) I have on my local machine is either too old and wasn't compiled with SOCKS support. Looks like I may need to do a self-compile of lynx and see if that helps.

Is there any easy way to tell conclusively whether or not a given version
of lynx has SOCKS support?

On Fedora 43, it looks like this:

~ $ lynx --version
Lynx Version 2.9.2 (31 May 2024)
libwww-FM 2.14, SSL-MM 1.4.1, OpenSSL 3.5.4, ncurses 6.5.20250614(wide)
Built on linux-gnu (Jul 24 2025 00:00:00).

Copyrights held by the Lynx Developers Group,
the University of Kansas, CERN, and other contributors.
Distributed under the GNU General Public License (Version 2).
See https://lynx.invisible-island.net/ and the online help for more information.

See http://www.openssl.org/ for information about OpenSSL.

~ $ ldd $(which lynx)
linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007f1d7d1c1000)
libbrotlidec.so.1 => /lib64/libbrotlidec.so.1 (0x00007f1d7d186000)
libz.so.1 => /lib64/libz.so.1 (0x00007f1d7d15e000)
libbz2.so.1 => /lib64/libbz2.so.1 (0x00007f1d7d14a000)
libidn2.so.0 => /lib64/libidn2.so.0 (0x00007f1d7d0fa000)
libncursesw.so.6 => /lib64/libncursesw.so.6 (0x00007f1d7d0bb000)
libtinfo.so.6 => /lib64/libtinfo.so.6 (0x00007f1d7d08e000)
libssl.so.3 => /lib64/libssl.so.3 (0x00007f1d7cd15000)
libcrypto.so.3 => /lib64/libcrypto.so.3 (0x00007f1d7c600000)
libc.so.6 => /lib64/libc.so.6 (0x00007f1d7c40d000)
libbrotlicommon.so.1 => /lib64/libbrotlicommon.so.1 (0x00007f1d7d069000)
libunistring.so.5 => /lib64/libunistring.so.5 (0x00007f1d7cb68000)
/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f1d7d1c3000)

I see no socks library linked there so I guess this version does
not have socks5 support.


On FreeBSD 15:

fbsd15:~ $ lynx --version
Lynx Version 2.8.9rel.1 (08 Jul 2018)
libwww-FM 2.14, SSL-MM 1.4.1, OpenSSL 3.5.4, ncurses 6.5.20240427(wide)
Built on freebsd15.0 (Apr 4 2026 01:30:05).

Copyrights held by the Lynx Developers Group,
the University of Kansas, CERN, and other contributors.
Distributed under the GNU General Public License (Version 2).
See https://lynx.invisible-island.net/ and the online help for more information.

See http://www.openssl.org/ for information about OpenSSL.

fbsd15:~ $ ldd $(which lynx)
/usr/local/bin/lynx:
libz.so.6 => /lib/libz.so.6 (0x2dd0d3cca000)
libidn.so.12 => /usr/local/lib/libidn.so.12 (0x2dd0d51f0000)
libncursesw.so.9 => /lib/libncursesw.so.9 (0x2dd0d5dad000)
libtinfow.so.9 => /lib/libtinfow.so.9 (0x2dd0d45d7000)
libssl.so.35 => /usr/lib/libssl.so.35 (0x2dd0d6af5000)
libcrypto.so.35 => /lib/libcrypto.so.35 (0x2dd0d9800000)
libdl.so.1 => /usr/lib/libdl.so.1 (0x2dd0d8306000)
libintl.so.8 => /usr/local/lib/libintl.so.8 (0x2dd0d8ffd000)
libc.so.7 => /lib/libc.so.7 (0x2dd0da8af000)
libthr.so.3 => /lib/libthr.so.3 (0x2dd0d75df000)
libsys.so.7 => /lib/libsys.so.7 (0x2dd0db890000)
[vdso] (0x2dd0d316e000)

No socks5 there either.

ObEditorial: It would be strange for the distro managers to compile it without SOCKS support. I mean, like, why bother to save a few kb of disk space...? But, stranger things have happened...

It seems to me that both Fedora 43 and FreeBSD 15 have left it out.

Looking at git history, I found this:

1998-06-25 (2.8.1dev.17)
* add configure option --with-socks5 (request by Brian Hauber
<bhauber@frenzy.com>) - TD

So install the socks library and use that ./configure flag when
building your custom lynx.

br,
KK
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

Kalevi Kolttonen <kalevi@kolttonen.fi> wrote:

[...]
So install the socks library and use that ./configure flag when
building your custom lynx.

Finding that socks library could be the most difficult part.

br,
KK
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

In article <10rbhfm$1a8v1$1@dont-email.me>,
Kalevi Kolttonen <kalevi@kolttonen.fi> wrote:

Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:

So, it begins to look like the version (of lynx) I have on my local machine >> is either too old and wasn't compiled with SOCKS support. Looks like I may >> need to do a self-compile of lynx and see if that helps.

Is there any easy way to tell conclusively whether or not a given version
of lynx has SOCKS support?

...

1998-06-25 (2.8.1dev.17)
* add configure option --with-socks5 (request by Brian Hauber
<bhauber@frenzy.com>) - TD

So install the socks library and use that ./configure flag when
building your custom lynx.

Guess so. Thanks for checking this.

I will get on it.

Still seems weird to me that they make it an optional thing.
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) writes:

Is there any easy way to tell conclusively whether or not a given version
of lynx has SOCKS support?

Support for -socks5_proxy was introduced in 2.9.0dev.5:

https://salsa.debian.org/lynx-team/lynx/-/commit/0ad88bf5208de408f5061ee3a3da67fad45e9235?page=2#9c1ac60ddb3bad1733b0954a5f7fd736df90a992

So in principle anything after that should work, unless someonerCOs gone
to the effort to take it back out again. What version do you have and
where did it come from?

(I canrCOt find an upstream VCS to reference because Lynx is still being developed in the 1980s or something, so this is DebianrCOs git tree. The
code is not meaningfully different.)


kalevi@kolttonen.fi (Kalevi Kolttonen) writes:

~ $ ldd $(which lynx)

[..]

That is the wrong tool for the job, and it gives the wrong answer in
this case.

$ ldd $(type -p lynx) | grep -i socks
$ lynx -dump -socks5_proxy localhost:1234 http://www.example.com
Example Domain

This domain is for use in documentation examples without needing
permission. Avoid use in operations.

[1]Learn more

References

1. https://iana.org/domains/example
$ lynx -version
Lynx Version 2.9.2 (31 May 2024)
[...]
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https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

In article <wwvpl46d2bz.fsf@LkoBDZeT.terraraq.uk>,
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote: >gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) writes:

Is there any easy way to tell conclusively whether or not a given version
of lynx has SOCKS support?

Support for -socks5_proxy was introduced in 2.9.0dev.5:

https://salsa.debian.org/lynx-team/lynx/-/commit/0ad88bf5208de408f5061ee3a3da67fad45e9235?page=2#9c1ac60ddb3bad1733b0954a5f7fd736df90a992

So in principle anything after that should work, unless someones gone
to the effort to take it back out again. What version do you have and
where did it come from?

I think we are close. On a machine that is running:

--- Cut Here ---
$ lynx --version
Lynx Version 2.9.0 (15 Jan 2024)
libwww-FM 2.14, SSL-MM 1.4.1, GNUTLS 3.8.3, ncurses 6.4.20240113(wide)
Built on linux-gnu.

Copyrights held by the Lynx Developers Group,
the University of Kansas, CERN, and other contributors.
Distributed under the GNU General Public License (Version 2).
See https://lynx.invisible-island.net/ and the online help for more information.
$
--- Cut Here ---

And the command line:

$ lynx -socks5_proxy localhost:3281 https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gawk/2026-04/index.html

If I run this without the below ssh command running, I get, as expected:

Alert!: Unable to connect to remote host.
But, if I launch this ssh command in another window:

$ ssh -D 3281 localhost

then re-run the above lynx command, it connects. Yey!!!

Now, I just need to fetch source code and re-compile lynx on my local
machine, and it should all be good.

Thanks for all the help.

BTW, I'm still curious if there is a direct way to find out if your (i.e.,
a particular binary) version of lynx has been socksified. I suppose the
answer is try the -socks5_proxy command line option and see if you get an
error message.

BTW2, I hope you are right that it is on-by-default if you have a recent
enough version of the lynx source code to compile. It should not be an optional thing.
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

On Fri, 10 Apr 2026 19:29:19 -0000 (UTC), Kalevi Kolttonen wrote:

Kalevi Kolttonen <kalevi@kolttonen.fi> wrote:

[...]
So install the socks library and use that ./configure flag when
building your custom lynx.

Finding that socks library could be the most difficult part.

Do you even need to build the app specially?

<https://packages.debian.org/trixie/tsocks> <https://packages.debian.org/trixie/redsocks>
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

In article <10rbs61$1d7qv$4@dont-email.me>,
Lawrence DOliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Fri, 10 Apr 2026 19:29:19 -0000 (UTC), Kalevi Kolttonen wrote:

Kalevi Kolttonen <kalevi@kolttonen.fi> wrote:

[...]
So install the socks library and use that ./configure flag when
building your custom lynx.

Finding that socks library could be the most difficult part.

Yes. That seems to be the hard part. I've been doing a little
investigating and it doesn't seem to be as straightforward as the usual
"find the lib*-dev" package and install it and then do the usual
configure/make thing". For one thing, it does seem like the socks library
is linked statically (i.e., as a .a file) rather than dynamically (as a .so file). This makes it hard to figure out where it comes from.

Note: I did one ./configure on this thing and it failed because it couldn't find "ncurses" on the system. This is understandable, b/c this particular system did not have libncurses-dev installed. I'm going to try it again on
a different system which I know does have libncurses-dev. But I still
don't know whether or not it will be able to find and use socks.

Do you even need to build the app specially?

<https://packages.debian.org/trixie/tsocks> ><https://packages.debian.org/trixie/redsocks>

Ah yes. All the world's a VAX.

The naivety of youth.
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be categorized as one (or more) of:

outrageous, incompetent, or mentally ill.
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) writes:

Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) writes:

Is there any easy way to tell conclusively whether or not a given version >>> of lynx has SOCKS support?

Support for -socks5_proxy was introduced in 2.9.0dev.5:

https://salsa.debian.org/lynx-team/lynx/-/commit/0ad88bf5208de408f5061ee3a3da67fad45e9235?page=2#9c1ac60ddb3bad1733b0954a5f7fd736df90a992

So in principle anything after that should work, unless someones gone
to the effort to take it back out again. What version do you have and >>where did it come from?

[...]

BTW, I'm still curious if there is a direct way to find out if your
(i.e., a particular binary) version of lynx has been socksified. I
suppose the answer is try the -socks5_proxy command line option and
see if you get an error message.

$ if lynx -help | grep -qe -socks5_proxy; then echo supported; else nope; fi
supported

This doesnrCOt cover a case where someone has disabled it but for some
reason left the option in the help outout, but if your software comes
from someone that malicious and/or incompetent then itrCOs time to review
your supply chain.

BTW2, I hope you are right that it is on-by-default if you have a recent enough version of the lynx source code to compile. It should not be an optional thing.

Look at the link above, thererCOs no conditional compilation involved.

Finding that socks library could be the most difficult part.

Yes. That seems to be the hard part.

You donrCOt need it.
--
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

In article <wwva4v9vqlr.fsf@LkoBDZeT.terraraq.uk>,
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
...

Look at the link above, theres no conditional compilation involved.

Unfortunately, there is.

Finding that socks library could be the most difficult part.

Yes. That seems to be the hard part.

You don't need it.

I did quite a bit of messing around with this last night. Without the --with-socks[5] option to ./configure, it won't use socks.

With that option, ./configure fails, saying it can't find socks.h.
When I installed some package that provided socks.h (but not, alas, either socks.a or socks.so - for various variations thereof), then it failed
saying it could not find -lsocks[5].

Sadly, I think there is a bug/incompleteness in the Debian package
management ecosystem. I did a lot of searching, and could not find any socks[5] libraries (either .a or .so) in any package in the repo.

So, it looks like it is not possible to compile (socksified) lynx from
source, using only stuff found in the Debian (Ubuntu) repos. I think I
will need to look elsewhere (Github or something like that) for the socks source code.
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

[...] You donrCOt need [socks library]

That seems to be correct. On Fedora 43, I did:

dnf download --srpm lynx

and inspected lynx.spec. It has:

%configure --libdir=/etc \
--disable-font-switch \
--disable-rpath-hack \
--enable-addrlist-page \
--enable-charset-choice \
--enable-cgi-links \
--enable-cjk \
--enable-debug \
--enable-default-colors \
--enable-externs \
--enable-file-upload \
--enable-gzip-help \
--enable-internal-links \
--enable-ipv6 \
--enable-japanese-utf8 \
--enable-justify-elts \
--enable-locale-charset \
--enable-kbd-layout \
--enable-libjs \
--enable-nls \
--enable-nsl-fork \
--enable-persistent-cookies \
--enable-prettysrc \
--enable-read-eta \
--enable-scrollbar \
--enable-source-cache \
--enable-warnings \
--with-screen=ncursesw \
--with-ssl=%{_libdir} \
--with-brotli \
--with-bzlib \
--with-zlib \
ac_cv_path_RLOGIN=/usr/bin/rlogin

No mention of socks so I believe it will be compiled in
as default, and its code is internal, needing no
external libraries.


The following command shows that socks5 is supported:

~ $ lynx -help|grep sock
-socks5_proxy=URL (via which) SOCKS5 proxy to connect (unrelated to -nosocks!)

Lynx version is 2.9.2 as I mentioned earlier.

br,
KK
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

In article <10rdjhp$1rkrp$1@dont-email.me>,
Kalevi Kolttonen <kalevi@kolttonen.fi> wrote:

Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

[...] You dont need [socks library]

That seems to be correct. On Fedora 43, I did:

dnf download --srpm lynx

and inspected lynx.spec. It has:

I'm only concerned with the Debian (Ubuntu and others) ecosystem.

See my other post for the analysis of the situation in the 2 Debian based systems in which I am interested.

Note that it *is* compiled in (hence you can't check it with ldd [*]), but there still needs to be a socks[5].a file present at
configure/compile/build time.

[*] And there is no runtime dependency (as would be tracked by your package manager) on any other package.
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) writes:

Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
...

Look at the link above, theres no conditional compilation involved.

Unfortunately, there is.

Where in https://salsa.debian.org/lynx-team/lynx/-/commit/0ad88bf5208de408f5061ee3a3da67fad45e9235?page=2#9c1ac60ddb3bad1733b0954a5f7fd736df90a992
is the conditionality, then?

Finding that socks library could be the most difficult part.

Yes. That seems to be the hard part.

You don't need it.

I did quite a bit of messing around with this last night. Without the --with-socks[5] option to ./configure, it won't use socks.

I donrCOt know what yourCOre doing, but the current stable release
absolutely does not need any extra libraries for -socks5_proxy support.
This is clear enough from a glance at the code, but if you want a
complete worked example:

richard@tsais:~/junk/lynx2.9.2$ ./configure
[...]
richard@tsais:~/junk/lynx2.9.2$ grep socks config.log
configure:13021: checking if you want socks library
configure:13039: checking if you want socks5 library
cf_cv_use_libsocks='no'
cf_cv_use_libsocks5='no'
richard@tsais:~/junk/lynx2.9.2$ make
[...]
richard@tsais:~/junk/lynx2.9.2$ ./lynx -cfg /etc/lynx/lynx.cfg -dump -socks5_proxy localhost:1234 http://www.example.com/
unknown option name EXTERNAL in /etc/lynx/lynx.cfg
Example Domain

This domain is for use in documentation examples without needing
permission. Avoid use in operations.

[1]Learn more

References

1. https://iana.org/domains/example

I would expect the same outcome from anything from 2.9.0dev.5 onwards.
--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> writes:

I donrCOt know what yourCOre doing, but the current stable release
absolutely does not need any extra libraries for -socks5_proxy support.
This is clear enough from a glance at the code, but if you want a
complete worked example:

richard@tsais:~/junk/lynx2.9.2$ ./configure
[...]
richard@tsais:~/junk/lynx2.9.2$ grep socks config.log
configure:13021: checking if you want socks library
configure:13039: checking if you want socks5 library
cf_cv_use_libsocks='no'
cf_cv_use_libsocks5='no'
richard@tsais:~/junk/lynx2.9.2$ make
[...]
richard@tsais:~/junk/lynx2.9.2$ ./lynx -cfg /etc/lynx/lynx.cfg -dump -socks5_proxy localhost:1234 http://www.example.com/
unknown option name EXTERNAL in /etc/lynx/lynx.cfg
Example Domain

This domain is for use in documentation examples without needing
permission. Avoid use in operations.

[1]Learn more

References

1. https://iana.org/domains/example

I would expect the same outcome from anything from 2.9.0dev.5 onwards.

Addendum, there is genuinely no additional SOCKS support lying around to
be secretly used here:

richard@tsais:~/junk/lynx2.9.2$ find . -name \*socks\*
richard@tsais:~/junk/lynx2.9.2$ dpkg -S libsocks
dpkg-query: no path found matching pattern *libsocks*
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:

In article <10rdjhp$1rkrp$1@dont-email.me>,
Kalevi Kolttonen <kalevi@kolttonen.fi> wrote:

Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

[...] You dont need [socks library]

That seems to be correct. On Fedora 43, I did:

dnf download --srpm lynx

and inspected lynx.spec. It has:

I'm only concerned with the Debian (Ubuntu and others) ecosystem.

Yes but the configure flags are relevant to all distros, not
just Fedora. It shows what works.

See my other post for the analysis of the situation in the 2 Debian based systems in which I am interested.

Note that it *is* compiled in (hence you can't check it with ldd [*]), but there still needs to be a socks[5].a file present at
configure/compile/build time.

I do not think so. Just use the configure flags
I showed you and do *not* use --with-socks5 or
whatever I told you earlier.

Here are the dependencies on Fedora 43:

Provides: webclient
Provides: text-www-browser
BuildRequires: brotli-devel
BuildRequires: bzip2-devel
BuildRequires: dos2unix
BuildRequires: gcc
BuildRequires: gettext
BuildRequires: gnupg2
BuildRequires: libidn2-devel
BuildRequires: make
BuildRequires: ncurses-devel
BuildRequires: openssl-devel
BuildRequires: telnet
BuildRequires: unzip
BuildRequires: zip
BuildRequires: zlib-devel

As you can see, no socks library is required for
the build to succeed.

br,
KK
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

In article <wwvik9x5z34.fsf@LkoBDZeT.terraraq.uk>,
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
...

I dont know what youre doing, but the current stable release
absolutely does not need any extra libraries for -socks5_proxy support.
This is clear enough from a glance at the code, but if you want a
complete worked example:

richard@tsais:~/junk/lynx2.9.2$ ./configure
[...]
richard@tsais:~/junk/lynx2.9.2$ grep socks config.log
configure:13021: checking if you want socks library
configure:13039: checking if you want socks5 library
cf_cv_use_libsocks='no'
cf_cv_use_libsocks5='no'

OK. I get it now. You don't pass --with-socks[5] on the ./configure
command line, and if you do, bad things happen. But without it, you do get socks5 support. Maybe they did it this way to support the idea of using
some external or custom socks or socks5 library, but in any case, it is
very confusing. I think it is a "soft bug" (aka, a "documentation" bug).

So, I got it to compile as you did, and it works (socksified) with http://www.example.com

So, that's good. But there are still problems.

I get the following message on startup (but it seems to be harmless):

unknown option name EXTERNAL in /home/username/local/lynx-2.9/etc/lynx.cfg

But then, when I try to access my sample https:// URL (note that
example.com is only http://, without the "s", so this problem does not
arise in that case), I get:

Alert!: This client does not contain support for HTTPS URLs.

So, now I'd like to know how to compile it so that it supports https.

Any idea what *-dev library I have to install (in a Debian/Ubuntu-ish
system) to get that?

In case, it helps, here are the things it couldn't find in the ./configure
run:

$ grep find config.log
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -linet
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -ldir
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lbsd
configure:39062: testing find linkage for idn2 library ...
configure:39603: testing find linkage for idn library ...
configure:40030: WARNING: Cannot find idn library
configure:41031: testing find linkage for bz2 library ...
configure:41499: WARNING: Cannot find bz2 library
configure:42781: testing find linkage for brotlidec library ... configure:43267: WARNING: Cannot find brotlidec library cf_cv_find_linkage_brotlidec='no'
cf_cv_find_linkage_bz2='no'
cf_cv_find_linkage_iconv='yes'
cf_cv_find_linkage_idn='no'
cf_cv_find_linkage_idn2='no'
cf_cv_find_linkage_z='yes'
$
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) writes:

So, now I'd like to know how to compile it so that it supports https.

Any idea what *-dev library I have to install (in a Debian/Ubuntu-ish
system) to get that?

What is the target platform here? Not just rCLDebian/Ubuntu-ishrCY but the
name and version? For Debian 0.93 the answer would be quite involved
(and wonrCOt come from me), for Debian stable it would be very simple:
apt install lynx.
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

In article <wwva4v9898l.fsf@LkoBDZeT.terraraq.uk>,
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote: >gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) writes:

So, now I'd like to know how to compile it so that it supports https.

Any idea what *-dev library I have to install (in a Debian/Ubuntu-ish
system) to get that?

What is the target platform here? Not just Debian/Ubuntu-ish but the
name and version?

I would rather not say. I have found that it pays to remain as generic as possible in these forums, as otherwise, people get hung up on the
specifics. I realize this sometimes makes it difficult for the
help-givers, but it is for the best.

For Debian 0.93 the answer would be quite involved (and wont come from
me), for Debian stable it would be very simple: apt install lynx.

Suffice it to say that if "apt install lynx" were the answer, we obviously wouldn't be having this conversation. The whole point of the conversation
is about needing to build it from source.

It has to do with my running an older version of the OS (and obviously not being willing/able to "upgrade" it), yet needing newer versions of certain tools than those that come with the OS. The way I usually do this is to
get the source from a system running a newer version of the OS (via: apt
source <package>) and then build that source on the older system.

I have done this with various other tools, such as ssh.
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

kalevi@kolttonen.fi (Kalevi Kolttonen) writes:

As you can see, no socks library is required for the build to succeed.

Indeed - I build Lynx 2.9.2 without --enable-socks, and SOCKS works fine
for me.

You *can* build Lynx against libsocks (e.g. as provided by Dante: https://www.inet.no/dante/), but you don't need to - if you look at WWW/Library/Implementation/HTTCP.c, in the HTDoConnect function, there's built-in SOCKS client code that's enabled even if SOCKS isn't defined.
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) writes:

Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

What is the target platform here? Not just Debian/Ubuntu-ish but the
name and version?

I would rather not say. I have found that it pays to remain as
generic as possible in these forums, as otherwise, people get hung up
on the specifics. I realize this sometimes makes it difficult for the help-givers, but it is for the best.

Good luck with that.
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

In article <y2a3410ucw3.fsf@offog.org>, Adam Sampson <ats@offog.org> wrote: >kalevi@kolttonen.fi (Kalevi Kolttonen) writes:

As you can see, no socks library is required for the build to succeed.

Indeed - I build Lynx 2.9.2 without --enable-socks, and SOCKS works fine
for me.

You *can* build Lynx against libsocks (e.g. as provided by Dante: >https://www.inet.no/dante/), but you don't need to - if you look at >WWW/Library/Implementation/HTTCP.c, in the HTDoConnect function, there's >built-in SOCKS client code that's enabled even if SOCKS isn't defined.

Thanks for the pointer to where to find the external SOCKS library.

As you say, it is not necessary. It is (more than a little) bit confusing.

Anyway, now the (next) problem is figuring out how to get HTTPS support compiled in.
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:

Anyway, now the (next) problem is figuring out how to get HTTPS support compiled in.

On Fedora, you need openssl-devel. You need to find out what
it is called on your OS. According to chatGPT, it is:

libssl-devel

on Debian.

br,
KK
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

Kalevi Kolttonen <kalevi@kolttonen.fi> wrote:

On Fedora, you need openssl-devel. You need to find out what
it is called on your OS. According to chatGPT, it is:

libssl-devel

on Debian.

Sorry, my mistake, it is called:

libssl-dev

br,
KK
--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

In article <10rgf6j$2l9h4$1@dont-email.me>,
Kalevi Kolttonen <kalevi@kolttonen.fi> wrote:

Kalevi Kolttonen <kalevi@kolttonen.fi> wrote:

On Fedora, you need openssl-devel. You need to find out what
it is called on your OS. According to chatGPT, it is:

libssl-devel

on Debian.

Sorry, my mistake, it is called:

libssl-dev

br,
KK

Bingo! Thank you, thank you!

I installed that package, then did: make distclean
followed by: ./configure --with-ssl && make
And then: make install

And now it all works. Yey!

For anyone who is following along at home, the magic is:

1) apt install libncurses-dev libssl-dev
2) ./configure --with-ssl --prefix=$HOME/local/lynx-2.9
3) make
4) make install

Note, BTW, that you *can* tell that SSL is there (in your built lynx) using ldd:

$ ldd ./lynx | grep ssl
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

In article <10rgi5l$18jqg$1@news.xmission.com>,
Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:
...

For anyone who is following along at home, the magic is:

1) apt install libncurses-dev libssl-dev
2) ./configure --with-ssl --prefix=$HOME/local/lynx-2.9
3) make
4) make install

One more thing. I still got (until I fixed it as described below) the
bogus error message about EXTERNAL being an unknown option (or something
like that). I fixed this by editing the cfg file and finding the line that ends with :EXTERNAL and commenting that line out.

There is probably a more system-y way to fix this, but I don't care enough
to find/figure that out. If anyone else knows a better fix, though, please
let me know.
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they believe in Jesus' sacrifice they can reject Jesus' teachings about
how we should treat others. In this country, they show that they reject
Jesus' teachings by voting for Republicans.
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