Setting up HTTP proxy in the linux shell

You can set the http_proxy environment variable using the command specific to your shell (e.g. set or export). 

To make this change persistent, add the command to the appropriate profile file for the shell. For example, in bash, add a line like the following to your .bash_profile or .bashrc file:

http_proxy=http://username:password@hostname:port;  

export http_proxy