Feature #16482: net/http should support TLS connection to proxies

• Status: Open
• Priority: Normal
• Assignee: -
• Target version: -

[xformer (Frank Schwab)]

Right now net/http forces the user to use a clear text connection to a proxy. This massively reduces security as the user is forced to sent proxy authentication data in the clear.

A proxy is specified in net/http like this:

proxy_addr = 'your.proxy.host'
proxy_port = 8080
proxy_user = 'aProxyUser'
proxy_pwd  = 'aProxyPassword'

Net::HTTP.new('example.com', nil, proxy_addr, proxy_port, proxy_user, proxy_pwd).start { |http|
  # always proxy via your.proxy.addr:8080, user 'aProxyUser', password 'aProxyPassword'
}

There is no scheme present in the 'proxy_addr' variable. In the code of Net::HTTP::new the proxy connection is opened via a TCP socket, not via HTTP or HTTPS.

As this considerably weakens security I would like to suggest that it should be made possible to specify that the connection to the proxy is done through a TLS connection. Maybe there could be a use_ssl parameter or the like.

Note that this issue is not about the connection that is routed through the proxy but about the connection to the proxy itself.