How to Use Curl Command with Proxy on Linux

Curl is a utility used for data transfer in command lines or scripts. In this tutorial, you will learn how to use the curl command to connect via a proxy server on the Linux system.

Using Environment Variable

In a very simple word, you can simply set the following environment variables on your system. The curl command will automatically use these variables as a proxy. You can export those variables in your shell, like:

Without Authentication 

export http_proxy="http://proxy.server:port"
export https_proxy="https://proxy.server:port"

With Authentication 

export http_proxy="http://username:password@proxy.server:port"
export https_proxy="https://username:password@proxy.server:port"

After exporting the environment variables, the curl command will automatically use the above proxy during a remote connection.

curl http://example.com

Once your work is done, you can simply unset these environment variables like:

unset http_proxy
unset https_proxy

Without Environment Variable

Instead of setting environment variables, you can simply pass the proxy details to curl command as a command-line parameter.

curl -x "http://username:password@proxy.server:port" http://example.com