How to make Yahoo IM via gaim work (through a HTTP proxy)
Yahoo changed their authentication protocol yet *again*, so gaim 0.75 is using the web-based authentication for the moment. However, this doesn’t appear to work when going through a HTTP proxy.
What I’ve just done to work around this is create an ssh tunnel to a machine which *does* have direct HTTP access.
ssh -l [user] -L 80:login.yahoo.com:80 [host]
Then add login.yahoo.com to the list of names for 127.0.0.1 in /etc/hosts.
January 15th, 2004 at 6:45 pm
That expains why it stopped working at work! Gary, you’re brilliant, and I could almost make this work at work, cept for the fact that I can’t modify the /etc/hosts on my machine at work!
January 20th, 2004 at 3:17 pm
So use a dynamic SSH tunnel if you can’t edit /etc/hosts. Something like “ssh [-l user] -N -f -D 12345 [host]” will do it.
Then set gaim to use a socks proxy, with the hostname “localhost” and the port no “12345″ (or whatever you specified for the tunnel”
January 20th, 2004 at 3:17 pm
So use a dynamic SSH tunnel if you can’t edit /etc/hosts. Something like “ssh [-l user] -N -f -D 12345 [host]” will do it.
Then set gaim to use a socks proxy, with the hostname “localhost” and the port no “12345″ (or whatever you specified for the tunnel)
January 21st, 2004 at 5:52 pm
No workie for me.
In Gary’s section, do I add login.yahoo.com to the /etc/hosts for my machine, or the remote machine? What type of permissions does [user] need on [host]?
In Conall’s suggestion, do I need to set the user and passwd for the Socks 5 host? If so, which user , me or the remote machine [user]?
January 22nd, 2004 at 5:34 pm
Vince, in Gary’s suggestion, you add that to /etc/hosts on your machine. The end result is making Gaim think your machine has unrestricted access to login.yahoo.com:80 which will solve the problem with Gaim.
In my system, you don’t use a username or password, since you’re actually making a socks proxy (of sorts) on the fly. What it will then mean is that whatever access the machine you’re sshing into has, your machine will have to, when the tunnel is running. This means my system will also solve it for you, but will be able to let you do other stuff too.
In both system s you need an ssh account on a machine with an unrestricted (or near enough) connection.
February 3rd, 2004 at 4:43 pm
See also this URL for some good info…
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=3770376&forum_id=9587
April 8th, 2005 at 5:25 pm
Ok Im desperate. I can log on to about anything on my company internet access. Even my yahoo account but I cannot get yahoo IM. Must be a proxy issue. And yes, I’m not as witty with a computer as you gentelman might be. Is there anyway to help me get past a firewall by using the proxy server? Would love if someone could pleasae provide help.
April 8th, 2005 at 6:50 pm
What I mailed back:
To be honest, gaim works a huge amount better than it did back then. What version of gaim are you running? If it’s before 1.0, you should certainly consider installing a new version.
To briefly go over how to set up the HTTP proxy for Yahoo (in case you haven’t already), first you go to the Accounts dialog. To do this, select “Accounts” from the “Tools” menu.
You should of course already have a Yahoo entry here - click on it, and click on “Modify”.
In the new dialog, click on “Show more options”. At the bottom, there’s a selection called “Proxy type”. Select “HTTP”. Now, type in your HTTP proxy hostname/port/username/password details, and click “Save”.
Maybe that’ll work?
If that doesn’t work, select “Debug Window” from the “Help” menu. Try to connect to Yahoo (open the Accounts dialog, click on the “Online” tickbox on the Yahoo line). And send me the information from that debug window.
May 27th, 2005 at 11:03 am
I use GAIM 1.3.0 for windows. And I got stuck with proxy for my yahoo account.
For mxcngt :
What I should I type for hostname and port ?
Thank you for your help
April 5th, 2006 at 4:02 pm
i have the latest gaim. I can log on to MSN but i cannot log on to yahoo.
April 12th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
teacher me how to make a im
April 18th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
I’d suggest getting a beta of gaim 2.0 from http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
If the connection to Yahoo! fails, it will attempt to use a fallback HTTP method instead. Then as long as your proxy settings are okay, the connection should work…
(of course, this depends on your network admins not having explicitly disabled Yahoo!)
April 21st, 2006 at 9:08 am
I am running gaim 1.5 under ubuntu 5.10. I am behind a HTTP proxy and while I try to login to my yahoo account I get an “Unable to read” error.
Here is the output of ‘gaim -d’
plugins: registering plugin-load signal
plugins: registering plugin-unload signal
blist import: Reading /home/snasa/.gaim/blist.xml
blist import: Finished reading /home/snasa/.gaim/blist.xml
prefs: Reading /home/snasa/.gaim/prefs.xml
prefs: Finished reading /home/snasa/.gaim/prefs.xml
plugins: Loading saved plugin /usr/lib/gaim/docklet.so
tray icon: plugin loaded
tray icon: created
plugins: Loading saved plugin /usr/lib/gaim/notify.so
pounces: Error reading pounces: Failed to open file ‘/home/snasa/.gaim/pounces.xml’: No such file or directory
Session Management: ICE initialized.
Session Management: Connecting with no previous ID
Session Management: Handling new ICE connection… done.
Session Management: Connected to manager (GnomeSM) with client ID 107e330bd0000114560641100000075100125
Session Management: Using gaim as command
Session Management: Received first save_yourself
Session Management: Received save_complete
tray icon: embedded
account: Connecting to account 0×81e3d18. gc = 0×82d1bd0
connection: Connecting. gc = 0×82d1bd0
connection: Calling serv_login
server: gaim 1.5.0 logging in its_nazza using Yahoo
dns: Created new DNS child 9080, there are now 1 children.
dns: Host ‘172.31.1.1′ resolved
http proxy: Connecting to scs.msg.yahoo.com:80 via 172.31.1.1:8080 using HTTP
http proxy: Connect would have blocked.
http proxy: proxy connection established
yahoo: Only wrote -1 of 34 bytes!accounts: Writing accounts to disk.
dns[9080]: nobody needs me… =(
account: Disconnecting account 0×81e3d18
connection: Disconnecting connection 0×82d1bd0
blist: Destroying
connection: Destroying connection 0×82d1bd0
May 5th, 2006 at 10:39 am
If you’re getting the “Only wrote -1…” message, then it seems likely that the HTTP proxy disconnected you.
The likely reason is that the proxy doesn’t allow CONNECT proxy requests - if using squid, this is a configuration/security setting.
June 20th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
My pc at work connected to internet with http proxy, and gaim not loged into yahoo IM.
I change number of port 5050 to 25 and just work fine!
Thanks
July 22nd, 2006 at 11:08 am
I have a problem please help..
I am using a university lan.I have to use http proxies for the internet.And those proxies sonot allow 5050 tunneling.If i try to use gaim , it says tunneling not allowed.What do i do.Is there no other way.In windows the yahoo messenger works fine.It doesnt need any tunneling and stuf.Is there any other way i can do the same in linux?