How to use pip on windows behind an authenticating proxy

Question

My computer is running windows behind a proxy on a windows server (using active directory), and I can't figure out how to get through it with pip (in python3). I have tried using --proxy, but it still just timeouts. I have also tried setting a long timeout (60s), but that made no difference. My proxy settings are correct, and I compared them with those that I'm using successfully in TortoiseHG to make sure.

Are there any other tricks that anyone knows of that I can try, or is there some limitation in pip with regards to windows proxies?

Update: My failed attempts involved searching pypi. I've just tried actually installing something and it worked. Searching still fails though. Does this indicate a bug in pip or do they work differently?

Answer 1

I have tried 2 options which both work on my company's NTLM authenticated proxy. Option 1 is to use --proxy http://user:pass@proxyAddress:proxyPort

If you are still having trouble I would suggest installing a proxy authentication service (I use CNTLM) and pointing pip at it ie something like --proxy http://localhost:3128

Answer 2

It took me a couple hours to figure this out but I finally got it to work using CNTLM and afterwards got it to work with just a pip config file. Here is how I got it work with the pip config file...

Solution:

1. In Windows navigate to your user profile directory (Ex. C:\Users\Sync) and create a folder named "pip"

2. Create a file named "pip.ini" in this directory (Ex. C:\Users\Sync\pip\pip.ini) and enter the following into it:

    [global]     trusted-host = pypi.python.org                    pypi.org                    files.pythonhosted.org     proxy = http://[domain name]%5C[username]:[password]@[proxy address]:[proxy port] 

Replace [domain name], [username], [password], [proxy address] and [proxy port] with your own information.

Note, if your [domain name], [username] or [password] has special characters, you have to percent-encode | encode them.

3. At this point I was able to run "pip install" without any issues.

Hopefully this works for others too!

P.S.: This may pose a security concern because of having your password stored in plain text. If this is an issue, consider setting up CNTLM using this article (allows using hashed password instead of plain text). Afterwards set proxy = 127.0.0.1:3128in the "pip.ini" file mentioned above.