Simple proxy server for NTLM

I was never successful in getting maven run at office due to the proxy setup, which supports NTLM authentication.  While looking a proxy server that supports NTLM auth, I was also looking if they support modifying request/response headers etc. or act as a caching proxy.  Here is the list so far:

• cntlm - developed in C, still active (Last Update: 2012-04-07).
• Java NTLM Proxy - developed in Java (1.5), seems no one is maintaining (
  Last Update: 2009-07-17).
• NTLM Authorization Proxy Server - developed in Python, no activity since an year (Last Update: 2011-03-23)

Above servers work and work silently in the background offering NTLM auth support.  Features include support for multiple external proxies, choice to select external proxy vs direct internet connection etc.  With one of these running you are no longer tied to use IE for browsing those sharepoint sites on intranet.  FF/Chrome/Opera work as seamlessly as IE.

Another interesting set of proxy servers:

• fiddler2 -  developed in .net and has two versions, one runs with .net ver 2 and other with ver 4.  Project seems to be active as of today.  Integrates well with FF also inaddition to IE.  Tested with FF 16.0.2.  Sports a nice UI displaying timings per each request, headers info, body as raw text etc.  There is a way to debug as well after modifying the request headers.
• The Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP) - sports similar features as above, but developed in Java.

Both these are meant more for testing application vulnarebilities rather than server as general purpose proxy servers.

Finally yet another category of proxy servers are for the purpose of having your own intranet and to be able to restrict users, block ads etc.  Here are few:

• Polipo
• Privoxy
• Squid

Of these I tried only Privoxy and it has support for customizing filtering/blocking based a set of rules.  Could not find any developed in Java.  Please let me know if you have come across of any.

Misc CMD commands

net start : lists all running services
net config workstation : to get the logged on user info
net stop "service name" : to stop a particular service
net use drive_letter: \\computername\sharename : to map a share with a drive name
net use drive_letter: /delete : to unmap the mapped share
sc query type= service state= active : to get all active services
sc query type= service state= inactive : to get all stopped/inactive services
sc query type= service state= all : to get all services

Sources
Services Query
CMD optons

git setup - windows

Chronologically this post should come before the git command quick ref, but was too lazy to write this down at that time and struggled again when time came to move to a new laptop.  So here are the steps I followed:

1. Download the msysgit (exe/zip) whichever you prefer,  I usually go for the zip version always.  I have not yet tried, but you may choose to use the GUI as well.  The default gui that comes with msysgit is good enough also.
2. Do not add the bin folder to your path if using any unix utils port or cygwin as there will be lot of conflicts.  Just add the upto the git folder to the path, which contains a batch file git-bash.bat.  Once you run this, you will get a shell prompt and all the git commends will be available from here.
3. git will store all settings to %HOME% folder, which will not be defined usually on windows and will default to your profile directory C:\Documents and Settings\user on XP.  Thanks to VonC, he mentions a nice setting.  Change the %HOME% to whatever folder you want in the file profile within etc folder.  Search for the line "# Set up USER's home directory".  Once in the git-bash shell, / (forward slash) aka root is pointed to the git setup folder.  If you prefer to have your settings stored within this, just set HOME to /yourname.
4. Minimally we just need to setup user name and email to start using git and there are 3 scopes available - system, global and local.  You can refer to the freely available Pro Git book to learn about them and more about Git.

I wanted to try open office 3.3 after a long gap.  I used it when it was 2.0, but later to install it you need admin privileges, which I do not have.  I found below entries, which explain clearly how to install with out admin rights.  They do work:

http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=74&t=12426&sid=6ca36398e6f4881f3bcc689f27fcc9cc

http://www.oooninja.com/2009/03/openofficeorg-3-install-portable-how.html