I tried (on Linux) `google-chrome --proxy-server="localhost:2001" google.com`, with no proxy running on localhost:2001, and got the expected network error page interstitial. But then Chrome seemed to recover from that, try again, and succeed. So that seems wrong.

If people are relying on proxies for some security guarantee, then they lose that guarantee. Precisely how bad that is depends on the circumstances, so I'm not 100% sure what severity to assign to this bug.

This bug might also apply on other platforms; haven't tried.

In my view, this is not a security bug but a functional bug, but I agree it should have component=privacy since this could have privacy implications.

I tested on Chrome stable channel (67.0.3396.87) and it is working for me.

@palmer: Are you testing from a corp machine? If so, the proxy is controlled by the BeyondCorp extension, and hence the --proxy-server command line has no effect until you set its to "Off: System/Alternative" mode. If that is not the case, I would like to follow-up with you for a repro.

@wattersmt: Unfortunately proxy settings are complicated, so there are a number of possibilities here:

(1) Your proxy settings are being controlled by group policy. If that is the case, --proxy-server has no effect. Navigate to chrome://policy and search for ProxyMode to see if you have a policy override.

(2) Your proxy settings are being controlled by an extension. If that is the case, it can override the proxy set via command line.

(3) Proxy settings are in fact correct, however you have specified a bypass list that causes the URLs of interest to be bypassed. Since in your command line you have:
   --proxy-bypass-list=$no_proxy
The value of $no_proxy is pertinent. For instance if your no_proxy environment variable is the wildcard "*" then you are effectively using no proxy.

(4) You mentioned "returns the local network IP instead of the SOCKS proxy server's address.". Note that you configured Chrome to use an HTTP proxy with --proxy-server=localhost:2001. If you want it to be treated as a SOCKS proxy you need to spell it --proxy-server="sock5://localhost:2001".


The next step for debugging is to navigate to:
   chrome://net-internals#proxy

And report back what it says.

Thanks for the response.  It appears I was setting the proxy server parameter incorrectly.  Running chrome using the following command does work with my http proxy.

google-chrome-stable --proxy-server="10.8.0.1:8080" --proxy-bypass-list="localhost,127.0.0.1,.example.com,.google.com"

Thanks!

@palmer: Mind taking a look at comment #3 -- I have a question for you. Thanks!

#5: Yep, I was on a corporate machine with a corp-logged-in profile.

Thanks!

I believe this is working as intended then.