Enhanced proxy settings for the Desktop App

We've enhanced the proxy settings in the mabl Desktop App to provide greater flexibility for users with for complex network configurations. Specifically, you can now tell the Desktop App which traffic should use the proxy settings:

• Mabl: only traffic from the Desktop App to mabl will use the proxy settings
• Test: only traffic from browser-based and API tests will use the proxy settings
• Both: both Desktop App traffic and test traffic will use the proxy settings
• None: all proxy settings will be ignored

Previously, proxy settings only applied to communications with the mabl API, and a direct network connection was needed to the system under test. With this enhancement, you can choose to have your proxy settings apply to test network traffic in addition to (or instead of) the communications between the app and the mabl API. When proxy settings are applied to the test traffic, both browser based tests and API tests will use the configured proxy. This change brings the capabilities of the Desktop App in line with those of the mabl CLI.

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Disabling proxy settings

Selecting “None” will disable the proxy settings for both the mabl API and the test traffic, but will keep the proxy configuration itself intact. This option is useful for testing so that you don’t have to keep retyping the proxy settings.

Configure proxy settings

To specify which traffic you want to apply proxy settings for the Desktop App, click on Edit > Preferences and select the “Proxy Settings” tab.

Validate mabl traffic and test traffic

As part of this enhancement, you can now validate mabl and test traffic independently. Click on "Test" at the bottom of the Proxy Settings window to open the Validate Proxy Settings window. (Note that connectivity can still be validated even if the proxy settings for that traffic type are disabled.)

• Validate mabl traffic: Click on "Verify app connectivity" to check your connection to mabl services.
• Validate test traffic: Enter a URL (typically a link to some part of the system under test) in the “URL to test” field, and click on "Verify test connectivity.”

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Validating test traffic

There may be cases where test traffic validation behaves different from the actual test. There are many different proxy implementations, and we are unfortunately not able to test them all.

In the event that validation fails, but you believe the proxy settings to be correct, we recommend running an actual test to confirm whether the failed validation is the result of incorrect proxy settings or is caused by a subtle different between how the validation traffic and test traffic interact with your particular proxy configuration.

Proxy .pac file bug fix

Finally, a proxy-related bug was fixed as part of this change. The bug would affect systems with the following configuration:

1. The system proxy settings were configured to use a .pac file.
2. The mabl Desktop App was configured to use the system proxy settings.
3. The .pac file resolved to a list of more than one proxy directive, as shown below:

PROXY foo.company.com:8080; PROXY bar.company.com:8080

Should these conditions be met, some legacy proxy handling code would mis-parse the proxy list, resulting in an invalid proxy configuration. This legacy code has been removed, and proxy settings in this form will now be correctly handled.

For more information on configuring proxy settings for the Desktop App, check out the docs.