Managing Proxy Settings

Connecting Omniscope to the Internet

If you are in a typical medium to large organisation, your PCs may access the Internet through a proxy server. Proxy servers are separate computers that act as gateways and are used to improve security and efficiency. 

Omniscope needs to be able to access the Visokio servers for various reasons including activation, automatic updates and sending bug reports. These servers are accessed via host services.visokio.com, port 80.

Also, some user-configured functionality requires Omniscope to retrieve data from user-configured sites on the internet - such as live price quotes and web services.  Note: that Omniscope only retrieves text and value data from websites configured by the user, and never retrieves executable content or data that may be considered a security risk.

Auto-detecting proxy settings 

Omniscope detects proxy settings automatically, out-of-the-box. You should not need to make any configuration changes to your Omniscope installation.

In rare cases this does not work with a particular organisation's proxy settings policy. You can tell when proxy settings are not working when Omniscope is unable to check for updates but your web browser is able to access the internet successfully.

If auto-detected proxy settings do not work, you can manually configure your proxy settings (below).  Alternatively, if you only wish to permit access specifically to the Visokio servers to support license activation, you may be able to reconfigure your proxy server and firewall to allow direct access specifically to services.visokio.com, port 80.

Configuring manually whilst activating

When activating Omniscope, if the proxy settings detected are not correct, Omniscope may ask you to enter these as part of the product activation dialog steps. If the Online activation failed dialog appears, click the Proxy settings button and enter the details, as described below.

• You will need to know the http/https proxy host and http/https proxy port of your proxy server
• From Omniscope go to Main Toolbar: Settings [Application-wide] > Advanced > HTTP/HTTPS proxy settings
• In the dialog, tick the Use HTTP proxy or Use HTTPS proxy radio button and enter the proxy host and port settings, then click OK

Diagnosing proxy settings issues

Remove any manually specified proxy settings you may have made and verify that the Internet is accessible, but that Omniscope does not work.  Install Omniscope from the full installer (which includes Java) on a clean PC and test. This will rule out a different Java VM and the possibility of any manual settings still taking effect.

Leave any manually specified proxy settings removed for the following tests.

Try passing the startup property "visokio.disableSystemProxies", by adding the line below to the installconfig.properties file in the installation folder, making sure this line does not already exist without a preceding "#":

ADDITIONAL_JVM_ARGS=-Dvisokio.disableSystemProxies=true

If this has no effect when you restart Omniscope, revert this change.

Also try the following: 

ADDITIONAL_JVM_ARGS=-Dvisokio.disableCustomProxySelector=true

If this has no effect when you restart Omniscope, revert this change.

Finally, try enabling the startup property "enableProxyDebug", by adding the line below (again, making sure this line does not already exist without a preceding "#":

ADDITIONAL_JVM_ARGS=-DenableProxyDebug=true

Restart Omniscope, verify the Internet is not available, and submit an error report from within Omniscope, which should be clearly labelled. You will need to email the saved report to us.  We may be able to determine from this whether there is a problem with Omniscope, or whether it is a fault with Java's detection of proxy settings.

Also use the debug launcher (Omniscope_debug.exe or launch_debug.exe in the installation folder) and send us screenshots of the dialogs that appear.

Configuring proxy settings at roll-out

If you are a system administrator and are deploying (rolling out) Omniscope to multiple PCs, you can simultaneously roll out proxy settings. This permits your deployed installations to be activated by your users based on your exact proxy configuration settings if they are unusual..

• Use a single test installation of Omniscope and configure the correct proxy settings as described above
• Open the folder:
  
  • {System drive}\Program Files\Visokio Omniscope - will set the proxy for all the users on the machine.
  • On Vista: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Visokio - will only set the proxy for that particular user.
  • On XP: C:\Users\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Visokio - will only set the proxy for that particular user.
• You will see the file proxy.txt which contains the proxy settings you have entered, which will be similar

for HTTP proxy to:

                   #Resource properties file
                   #Wed Feb 15 13:37:09 GMT 2006
                   http.proxyPort=80
                   http.proxyHost=proxy.visokio.com 

 for HTTPS proxy to: 

                   #Resource properties file
                   #Wed Feb 15 13:37:09 GMT 2006
                   https.proxyPort=80
                   https.proxyHost=proxy.visokio.com                    

• Deploy this file to the same folder in your deployed Omniscope installations

Firewall configuration