Proxy/Citation Style issue (understood and workaround found)

rjhorniii

I am in a facility where the security proxy permits only HTTP and HTTPS.

I discovered that I could not add citation styles directly at the Zotero local application. The error message "Could not resolve ..." usually indicates a proxy setup issue. I've found no documents on how to set up proxies.

If I go to the citation library using a browser I can find the citation CSL, download it, and install it. This works without problem for independent CSLs. The dependency resolution does not work. For dependent CSLs I need to look at the CSL and go to all the parent citation CSLs in the right order and install them.

This may be a bit inconvenient but it's a viable workaround.

It would be a big help if the documentation could include network access requirements information. More and more security systems are requiring a positive access control permission list. You need to know the protocols, ports, and destination hosts that are wanted by the application. Then the security folks can add these permissions to access control lists on both workstations and proxies.

I doubt wss:// will be allowed out, so I know that some Zotero functions will not work. Documentation like that would let me know what to expect.

dstillman

Zotero needs browser-equivalent access. There's no other answer.

https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/zotero_and_firewalls

dstillman

(And the in-app style importer simply loads the Zotero styles page in a webview, so if that gives you an error, it's likely that internet access in your Zotero is simply broken.)

rjhorniii

Yes, Zotero is broken (or documentation is missing). I can watch the network traffic and it makes no connection request to the HTTP proxy. Nor can I find a menu or option to specify the proxy for the application. I have verified that the proxy environment variables for the running process are set directing https_proxy and http_proxy to the proper proxy location. The proxy is doing its job and the regular browsers are fully operational.

And, Zotero does ask for more than basic browser access. It wants wss:// access too. I can see that in the error log in Zotero.

adamsmith

You've seen https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/connection_error linked from the above page?

dstillman

Yes, see that page. If you can't get it to work, we'd want to see debug output for Zotero startup, either from a Debug ID with "Restart with Logging Enabled…" or (if you're not able to submit the output) copied and pasted from the debug output window and emailed to support@zotero.org with a link to this thread. But it's the same network subsystem as Firefox and can be configured the same way. It will use the system proxy settings by default.

wss:// is just a WebSocket connection. That's a standard browser feature used by many websites. It operates over the HTTPS port and should work with HTTP proxies. (This is the "persistent connection" described in the privacy policy. Without it, you won't get immediate sync or translator updates, but everything else will work, and the privacy policy describes how to turn off the connection attempts.)