CURLOPT_PROXYUSERPWD(3)

💅 CURLOPT_PROXYUSERPWD(3) — like, the proxy login page

okay bestie, this is <pink>CURLOPT_PROXYUSERPWD</pink> from the Library Functions Manual, and it's genuinely the glow-up your proxy connection has been waiting for ✨ It's all about the username + password combo you hand over when your HTTP proxy is like "who are you tho??" 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

CURLOPT_PROXYUSERPWD — the username and password you use for proxy authentication 🔐

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

#include <curl/curl.h>

CURLcode curl_easy_setopt(CURL *handle, CURLOPT_PROXYUSERPWD, char *userpwd);

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So you pass in a char pointer as the parameter, and that string should be shaped like [username]:[password] — that's the creds for connecting to the HTTP proxy 💅

Here's the part that lowkey trips people up: both the name and the password get URL decoded before they're used. So if you need an actual colon inside the username, you gotta encode it as %3A. And yes, this is different from how CURLOPT_USERPWD(3) works — beware, bestie, beware 😭

Wanna pick the auth method too? That's CURLOPT_PROXYAUTH(3), bestie, go off 👑

Good news though: the application does not have to keep the string around after setting this option. Set it and forget it, main character energy 🧚

Set it multiple times? No stress — the last string you set overrides all the previous ones. And if you set it to NULL, that disables it again. Clean slate, periodt ✨

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🎀 DEFAULT 🎀

NULL

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🌈 PROTOCOLS 🌈

This functionality affects all supported protocols — every single one, no cap 👑

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🔥 EXAMPLE 🔥

int main(void)
{
  CURL *curl = curl_easy_init();
  if(curl) {
    CURLcode result;
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "https://example.com/foo.bin");
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_PROXY, "http://localhost:8080");
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_PROXYUSERPWD, "clark%20kent:superman");
    result = curl_easy_perform(curl);
    curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
  }
}

(not clark%20kent being Clark Kent, the man is literally flying under the radar, iconic 🦸‍♂️💀)

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⭐ AVAILABILITY ⭐

Added in curl 7.1 — a certified classic, she's been here a while 💖

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💜 RETURN VALUE 💜

curl_easy_setopt(3) returns a CURLcode that tells you whether it slayed or flopped:

• CURLE_OK (0) — everything was OK, we ate 🍓
• non-zero — an error happened 😭 see libcurl-errors(3) for the details

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🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

• CURLOPT_PROXY(3)
• CURLOPT_PROXYPASSWORD(3)
• CURLOPT_PROXYTYPE(3)
• CURLOPT_PROXYUSERNAME(3)

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and that's the whole page, bestie — brought to you by the good people of libcurl, version dated 2026-10-12, and this little doc is CURLOPT_PROXYUSERPWD(3). go authenticate something gorgeous 💅✨