My IT Support Cannot Provide a ProxyMode Exception

[Darian Glover]

My environment has Chrome's and Edge's ProxySettings locked down to ProxyMode:direct. This prevents me from running a local (system) proxy, specifically Fiddler, so that I can check and debug the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) solutions I am developing.

I have passed on all the documentation I have found (see below) and the support staff have been unable to provide me with an exception so that my setting is ProxyMode:system. 

Is this a limitation with how policies are managed for Chromium or is there additional guidance I can provide to my IT support personnel?

Edge

Policy Configuration: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-policies

Proxy Configuration: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/edge-learnmore-cmdline-options-proxy-settings

Chrome

Policy Configuration: https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/187202?hl=en

Proxy Configuration: https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/proxy

[#2]

Hi, @Darian Glover! Thanks for your interest; I'm the original developer of Fiddler and the current owner of the networking area within Edge, so this question is right up my alley.

>Is this a limitation with how policies are managed for Chromium

I'm not sure I understand this question: Your IT admin has configured your system to enforce a "No Proxy" setting, and the browser respects that demand. If they wanted to do so, they could either remove that setting for everyone, or for just you (by targeting you with a different policy configuration). I assume that you're not an Administrator on your PC (since you could just go delete the policy out of the registry each time it is set by the policy agent)

It is a bit odd to have IT Admins force proxy settings to DIRECT (typically, if settings are configured at all, they'll either hardcode a particular proxy or hardcode "system"). It might be interesting to understand why they've done this. Unfortunately for your scenario, policy overrides the myriad other ways to specify a proxy (e.g. command line, extensions, etc).

If you only need to see the traffic, there's a great alternative approach:

1. Capture the traffic using the browser's logging feature:

https://textslashplain.com/2020/01/17/capture-network-logs-from-edge-and-chrome/

2. Import that traffic capture into Fiddler's Viewer using the NetLog importer:

https://textslashplain.com/2020/04/08/analyzing-network-traffic-logs-netlog-json/

If you need to modify traffic, things get a little more complicated; e.g. you could run Fiddler as a reverse-proxy, or you could possibly just use client urls of e.g. http://127.0.0.1:8888 and use the AutoResponder or Hosts extension to forward the requests to the correct backend server.

[#3]

Hi @Eric_Lawrence, a pleasure to meet you.

I assume "by targeting you with a different policy configuration" you are referring to a Windows Group Policy, such as a User-Specific Local Group Policy (LGPO). I've been told this has been attempted. Can you confirm that is what you are referring to and this should work? Such as following guidance in the documentation, https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/configure-microsoft-edge.

Also, can you confirm that there should not be any conflicts between Chrome and Edge Chromium policy configurations? It seemed to me at one point Edge Chromium used Chrome's.

I agree the current setting is a bit odd, but after twenty years working in Federal Government environments I have grown use to such oddities.

Darian.

[#4]

You can visit edge://policy to see the exact policy configuration settings that have been applied to the current browser.

Edge and Chrome policies are very similar (~95% the same policies) but are stored in different locations and do not interact with one another in any way (that is, setting a policy for Chrome has no impact on Edge, and vice versa).