Setup Wifi proxy credentials programmatically

Question

The app will be signed with the system signature, so in the end some protected permissions (like android.permission.WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS) may be granted.

My question is then how to setup credentials globally for a proxy on a particular WiFi network knowing that the app will be signed with system signature?

I can't find any information on how to do this. Based on what can be done in a standard java app, the following code may work :

        System.setProperty("http.proxyUser", usr);
        System.setProperty("http.proxyPassword", pwd);

But, is it the way to set proxy credentials on Android ? Is it going to set proxy credentials globally (i.e. for all apps using default http support) ? (IMO, even if this call works it won't change anything outside process boundary)

I also checked the code of android.provider.Settings.java where I found some properties about global proxy : global_http_proxy_host and global_http_proxy_port but nothing about proxy authentication.

Answer 1

Android uses System.setSystemProp to set the proxy in frameworks/base/core/java/android/net/Proxy.java

I guess you can do the same thing if you have system privileges.

I'm unsure if it affects android.webkit though.

Answer 2

There's no way to set global proxy credentials in Android. There's simply no structure in the whole AOSP that can hold it.

Unfortunately, I did not manage to find any explanation for this. Relevant Issue Tracker items are not public, comments in the source code are scarce. There's nothing in the developers blog on the issue. Embedded Android by Karim Yaghmour does not shed light on the issue either.

P.S. This answer is based purely on code analysis.