Support for profiles and proxy settings

Problem

In enterprise networks, it is relatively common to have not just firewall protection network traffic but also a network proxy to control the outgoing traffic.

This is a thing where you really should be in contact with your IT.
With the tooling guided here, you can get to the correct solution that you can distribute as a configuration file.
Leveraging your IT to use the tooling and set these things up will make the issue invisible to regular users.

Network proxies are a field of science on their own, and there are A LOT of different setups and ideologies around the topic.

Because of the variance in setups and methodologies, most command-line and developer tools cannot rely on the operating system to get all the settings needed. Most tools implement simple support and almost always depend on some tool-specific environment variables to get the details.

A proxy can be a simple one that can work just with a simple setup of HTTP_PROXY and HTTPS_PROXY environment variables. Conversely, a heavy-duty setup can involve restrictions that only allow access to outside networks from a specific network inside the company. Machines need the correct client certificates or passwords to access the proxy server and require a separate certificate to re-enable HTTPS traffic between the machine and the proxy server.

How to test if you are even affected by this

IT departments should resolve these things, so as an end-user or even a developer, you should NOT need to do these.

The simplest way to test things is to get RCC, create a template robot, and try to run that.

If the run is successful, you are done! If the execution fails, continue reading.

What

RCC Profile Configuration provides a way to create, test and distribute proxy configurations in a single format for all the tools involved. The profile configurations support many things on top of just the proxy settings, so the RCC documentation on the topic is worth a look-see.

Because the configuration is done and controlled by RCC, all Robocorp tools get these settings from a single source, so when you switch to a profile, all tools switch without the need to set things one by one.

With the profile configuration, you can control the following aspects:

• Proxy settings
• Certificate for proxy access
• Enable/disable SSL verifications
• Enable/disable SSL revocations
• Specify tool-specific config files for pip and micromamba
• Set the Robocorp Control Room endpoints
  • This is valid for enterprises that have separate SSO login

In general, the RCC profile config gives a lot of control for setting the behavior in enterprise settings.

How

Reminder that creating a profile is a one-time task for someone who knows the network setups.

👉 Running the tooling in the target network also enables immediate testing, which is highly recommended.

Always refer to the RCC Profile Configuration documentation for the latest commands.

• Start by getting and editing the default settings content:
  • rcc config settings > start.yaml
  • You can then edit most values into the start.yaml -file you created.
• The next step is to run the interactive configuration setup, but before that, it is good to have these ready:
  • Have your edited start.yaml file ready
  • If your proxy needs a client certificate, you need that exported in a PEM file.
  • If you have a pip.ini config file, have the file ready
  • If you have a mamba/conda config file, have the file ready
• Now run: rcc interactive config
  • RCC gives you an interactive sequence of questions to create a new profile using the details you give.
  • 
• You can now test the profile you just made according to the guide RCC provides:
  • Import the profile, switch to it, and run the diagnostics and speed test.
  • If all pass, you have created a working profile.
  • If something fails, you can repeat the interactive creation with different setups until you succeed.
• Once you have a tested configuration, you can deploy the configuration to others.

Deploying profiles

Once done, the profile is just a single YAML file with a filename pattern like: profile_example-profile.yaml.

• If you know the ROBOCORP_HOME path on the users' machines, you only need to get the profile file to that folder.
  • By default the location is on Windows: %localappdata%\robocorp and on Linux & macOS: ~/.robocorp
• You can also use RCC to import the profile to the correct location by running the command:
  • rcc config import -f <your profile yaml filename>
• Users can have multiple profiles if needed

Using and switching profiles

• List the profiles: rcc config switch
  • The output lists the name and description given when the profile was created.
• Use a profile: rcc config switch -p <name of the profile>
  • RCC extracts the profile settings and optional certificates into the ROBOCORP_HOME and can share the settings with Robocorp tools and applications.