Hi. I was asked at a local mailing list about how to write proxy setting in a /etc/make.conf and found that HTTP_PROXY and FTP_PROXY don't work anymore. This is because Portage defaults to use wget(1) and wget seems to look only http_proxy and ftp_proxy (cf. fetch(1) uses HTTP_PROXY and FTP_PROXY). As most people don't change the default downloader Portage manual should mention about it at least. Gentoo Linux FAQ says: "How do I use emerge from behind a firewall? Edit the PROXY settings in /etc/make.conf. If that doesn't work, edit /etc/wgetrc and edit http_proxy and ftp_proxy appropriately." so it might be good to have a similar description in /etc/make.conf. However, I can think of another solution. Portage could automatically set http_proxy and ftp_proxy respectively if HTTP_PROXY and FTP_PROXY (and propably PROXY) are set in /etc/make.conf (it is good for backward compatibility in /etc/make.conf). We can write a lower case environmental variables like http_proxy and ftp_proxy directly to /etc/make.conf but it doesn't look nice (and they only work for wget).
You have to define HTTP_PROXY and http_proxy if you want to be certain. I don't like the idea of making some Upper->Lower case stuff in /etc/make.conf; a better way would be to define http_proxy and then set HTTP_PROXY="$http_proxy". Also, a more Gentoo-like approach to environment variables would be to create a /etc/env.d/85proxy file in which you define the variable(s). [note: the number is arbitrary]
It is also not recommended to have portage automatically create new variables (HTTP_PROXY != http_proxy). Perhaps some odd user wants HTTP_PROXY set with one value, and http_proxy with another, or keep http_proxy unset but have HTTP_PROXY declared.
Okay, it doesn't look like /etc/make.conf is going to be edited as it isn't the recommended way to place variables anyway (/etc/env.d). I'm marking this as WONTFIX (as it would otherwise just linger along until it isn't even valid anymore).
