Cannot connect behind corporate proxy

[swsnr]

Hello,

I cannot connect to a Mattermost instance behind a corporate HTTP proxy when using the Flatpak package. This appears to be quite specific to the Flatpak variant; my proxy configuration works

• with normal desktop apps,
• with other Flatpak apps (I can e.g. send me messages with Signal Desktop through the same proxy), and even
• with the Linux binary one can download from https://mattermost.com/download/#mattermostApps/ (the one also listed as source in the flatpak manifest JSON).

It's really just the Mattermost Flatpak which is stuck in the loading spinner behind a proxy (it works if I use a public network, so it's really a proxy issue I guess). I can really just download the binary listed as source in the JSON, run in directly and it works, so I really believe some flatpak stuff is to blame here.

Unfortunately I know neither Mattermost nor Flatpak sufficiently to do any debugging; I'd very much appreciate pointers in the right direction.

Kind regards

[SemaiCZE]

Hi,

I don't know much about proxies in flatpak, but I found this issue: https://github.com/flathub/com.microsoft.Teams/issues/27

Can you try to run Mattermost with following command?

$ flatpak run --env=http_proxy=$http_proxy --env=https_proxy=$https_proxy com.mattermost.Desktop

Thanks, -Petr

[swsnr]

Thanks🙏 I'll try this, and also did a little deeper with the debugging suggestions in that ticket.

But I still wonder why all other flatpaks (even electron based ones) I use work just fine with a proxy 🤔

[swsnr]

This didn't change anything :disappointed: It still fails to connect to the server.

[swsnr]

I had a look at this again: I need to set the proxy inside the flatpak environment directly:

$ flatpak run --command=sh com.mattermost.Desktop

And then inside this shell:

$ settings set org.gnome.system.proxy mode manual
$ gsettings set org.gnome.system.proxy.http host REDACTED
$ gsettings set org.gnome.system.proxy.http port REDACTED
$ gsettings set org.gnome.system.proxy.https host REDACTED
$ gsettings set org.gnome.system.proxy.https port REDACTED

To me this looks as if the dconf/gsettings integration of this flatpak is somehow not correct.

[SemaiCZE]

@lunaryorn Thanks, that sounds like a piece of information that could move us a bit further. I'll look into it after my vacation. I'm definitely not a flatpak expert, but I'll try to get some inspiration in other projects 😁

[swsnr]

@SemaiCZE Thanks :pray:

Perhaps as another data point: I have to do the same shebang for the org.standardnotes.standardnotes flatpak, but not for the org.signal.Signal flatpak even though that's also an electron thing as far as I remember. I checked permissions of all these in flatseal but didn't notice any difference obviously related to this :shrug: This is certainly a little weird :thinking:

If you'd like me to try another Electron flatpak do tell me.

[SemaiCZE]

What I've found so far is that Mattermost settings are at ~/.var/app/com.mattermost.Desktop/config/glib-2.0/settings/keyfile. When you run the gsettings commands from inside the flatpak, the keyfile is altered with

[system/proxy/http]
host='REDACTED'

But that doesn't tell us why it's not using the system proxy if no configuration is present in the keyfile.

[vchernin]

I think the workaround is this: https://github.com/flathub/com.google.Chrome/pull/77

[CaptainMalu]

gsettings set org.gnome.system.proxy.https port

I had a look at this again: I need to set the proxy inside the flatpak environment directly:

$ flatpak run --command=sh com.mattermost.Desktop

And then inside this shell:

$ settings set org.gnome.system.proxy mode manual
$ gsettings set org.gnome.system.proxy.http host REDACTED
$ gsettings set org.gnome.system.proxy.http port REDACTED
$ gsettings set org.gnome.system.proxy.https host REDACTED
$ gsettings set org.gnome.system.proxy.https port REDACTED

To me this looks as if the dconf/gsettings integration of this flatpak is somehow not correct.

Thanks, that works.

We have a funny setup so we actually would love to see proxy settings within the mattermost app.

We have a mattermost server for our company. So far so nice. Now we have a client who get's his own mattermost server from us. The network of this client is a little bit tricky and so we have to use a proxy for the connection to his server.

That means at the end of the day we are connecting from the mattermost desktop client to two different servers and only need a proxy for one of them.

Maybe there could be something implemented, that you can specify a proxy for any server individually.

We also use mattermost on mac, linux and windows and don't need the proxy system wide.

[Pathsis]

I vowed not to waste another minute on flatpak! I can't use the system proxy by any means and can't find any official resources to solve this problem.

[swsnr]

I do not use mattermost anymore and no longer care for this issue, so I'm closing it.