Network Proxies and GSAS-II ¶

Network access is not required for installing or running GSAS-II but it is optimal to for GSAS-II to have this because there are parts of the program that access web-based services. Also. the program can be used to update itself to the latest software version. This update process will download only the lines of code that have been changed or created, so the update is usually very quick, even over slow network connections.

To obtain the latest versions of GSAS-II, a program named subversion (svn) is used to access the APS software server where the code is kept (​https://subversion.xray.aps.anl.gov/pyGSAS/trunk). If this directory can be seen in a web browser, but if running svn fails, it is likely your network is configured to require a network proxy. This is not common at universities, or with commercially-provided internet services, but is somewhat common for government and corporate sites. When one is needed, it will typically be of form such as proxyout.securesite.org:7070. If you are not able to get the GSAS-II download to work, you probably need a proxy. Check with your network/computer administrators, but my experience is that the first-line response people rarely have any knowledge about proxies, alas, so you need to find someone who really knows about the network configuration.

Testing ¶

You may be able to get information from this website: ​​http://www.whatismyproxy.com/ which can detect if your browser is using a proxy.

Supplying Proxy Information During Install ¶

When the bootstrap.py file is run, it will prompt to request the name of the proxy (supply either a name, such as proxyout.securesite.org or an IP address, such as 10.2.5.10). The second prompt is for the port number which is typically a two or four digit integer (above 7070). If GSAS-II is installed, this information can also be entered using the File/"Edit Proxy..." menu command. If this information is not supplied (or is wrong) during installation, GSAS-II will not be updated to the most recent version, but this can be corrected using the step immediately below.

Supplying/Editing Proxy Information After Install ¶

The File-->"Edit proxy..." menu command will open a window where the proxy location and port number can be supplied or changed. It is recommended that after this information is changed, the Help-->Update command be used to check that the supplied proxy information works.

Additional Proxy Info: Username/Password, etc. ¶

If you have an even more secure network, you may be required to supply even more information, such as an account or password. This can be done by editing the file named proxyinfo.txt in the main GSAS-II directory that is created for the GSAS-II files. This file is added when proxy information is entered. That file can hold additional options to be added to the svn command can be added. Below shows what this file looks like with addition of a proxy account (ABCD) and password (xyz123). Note that this information is being stored in a plain-text file so the security for this information is not high if anyone will have access to your computer. If greater security is needed, the file should be created as needed to perform updates and edited immediately after use to remove sensitive information.

proxyout.securesite.org
7070
--config-option
servers:global:http-proxy-username=ABCD
--config-option
servers:global:http-proxy-password=xyz123