ADO Proxy Configuration in Dockerfile for Azure Pipelines

Hi Hungry Panda

In your Dockerfile, you can hardcode proxy environment variables at image runtime, like this:

# Base image
FROM ubuntu:22.04
# Set environment variables globally (system-wide)
ENV HTTP_PROXY="http://proxy.company.com:8080"
ENV HTTPS_PROXY="http://proxy.company.com:8080"
ENV NO_PROXY="localhost,127.0.0.1,.company.com"
# Optional: configure APT & wget/curl with proxy
RUN echo 'Acquire::http::Proxy "http://proxy.company.com:8080";' >> /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/01proxy
# Your SDK/tools installation
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y \
    build-essential \
    wget \
    curl \
    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
# Optional: for tools like git, npm, etc.
RUN git config --global http.proxy http://proxy.company.com:8080 \
 && npm config set proxy http://proxy.company.com:8080
# Set working directory
WORKDIR /workspace

Here you can use ENV Instructions in Dockerfile, this ensures that any tools inside the container like curl, npm, nuget, etc. respect the proxy settings.

Yes, to test the agent registration and pipeline execution, you’ll need:

• An Azure DevOps organization (you can create one for free)
• A Personal Access Token (PAT) with agent pool permissions
• A self-hosted agent pool created in ADO

You can set up a sample pipeline that uses your Docker image like this:

pool:
  vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'
jobs:
- job: testDocker
  container: yourdockerhubusername/your-image-name:latest
  steps:
  - script: |
      echo "Testing tools and proxy..."
      echo $HTTP_PROXY
      curl -I https://www.google.com
    displayName: 'Test inside container'

Hope this helps!

Please Let me know if you have any queries.

Hi Hungry Panda

If your Docker image has hardcoded proxy settings like:

ENV HTTP_PROXY=http://proxy.mycompany.com:8080 
ENV HTTPS_PROXY=http://proxy.mycompany.com:8080

then any tool inside the container (like curl, npm, nuget, etc.) will attempt to route traffic through that proxy even if the user running the container is outside your company’s network.

If you're using Azure DevOps Services (https://dev.azure.com), you do not need to configure an ADO proxy.

Try this, instead of hardcoding, you can parameterize the proxy settings so users can inject their own values at runtime:

Instead of baking the proxy, make it overridable. Here’s how:

# Do NOT hardcode company proxy directly
ENV HTTP_PROXY=""
ENV HTTPS_PROXY=""
ENV NO_PROXY="localhost,127.0.0.1"

Then in Azure Pipelines (inside your org), define the proxy variables:

jobs:
- job: test
  container: yourdockerhubuser/your-image:latest
  variables:
    HTTP_PROXY: http://proxy.mycompany.com:8080
    HTTPS_PROXY: http://proxy.mycompany.com:8080
    NO_PROXY: localhost,127.0.0.1,.mycompany.com
  steps:
  - script: curl https://google.com

Outside users can run the image without setting proxy, and it will just work. They can still set the proxy manually like this if needed:

docker run -e HTTP_PROXY=http://proxy.acme.com:8080 myimage:latest

Hope this helps!

Please Let me know if you have any queries.

Hi Hungry Panda

You can use Microsoft Hosted Agents but, in this case, if urgent, you can set up self-hosted agent.

When did you submit the free parallelism, usually you need to wait for some days as Microsoft cannot guarantee immediate access.

Go to your Azure DevOps -> Organization settings -> Parallel jobs -> Check if Hosted Windows/Linux macOS shows 0 jobs and if request a free tier is still available.

Alternatively, you can run pipelines using a self-hosted agent

• Set up a private build agent on your local machine or VM
• Modify your pipeline like:

    pool:
    name: Default 
  

Additional References:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/agents/windows-agent?view=azure-devops&tabs=IP-V4

Hope this helps!

Please Let me know if you have any queries.

Thank you so much Durga Reshma Malthi for this detailed explanation. I'll try out your suggestions and get back if needed.

Hi Durga Reshma Malthi,

Thanks for the quick response. This is the way I've hardcoded my company's proxy in the Dockerfile. But the requirement is to configure ADO proxy, I don't have any idea on this.
If someone outside my company's network uses this docker image having my company's proxy hardcoded, will they be able to use tools like curl?