curl/docs/cmdline-opts/proxy-http2.md
Aritra Basu e78b1b3ecc
HTTP/3: add proxy CONNECT and MASQUE CONNECT-UDP support (ngtcp2 QUIC)
This patch adds two major proxy capabilities to curl (ngtcp2 QUIC):
- HTTP/3 Proxy CONNECT: Tunnel HTTP/1.1 or HTTP/2 traffic through an
  HTTPS proxy that speaks HTTP/3 (QUIC) using the standard CONNECT
  method over an HTTP/3 connection.
- MASQUE CONNECT-UDP: Tunnel HTTP/3 (QUIC) traffic through an HTTP
  proxy (speaking HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, or HTTP/3) using the extended
  CONNECT method with the CONNECT-UDP protocol (RFC9297 & RFC9298).

Public API additions:
- `CURLPROXY_HTTPS3`: new proxy type constant for HTTP/3 proxy
- `--proxy-http3`: new CLI flag to negotiate HTTP/3 with HTTPS proxy

The implementation adds two new filters:
- `H3-PROXY` - enables negotiating HTTP/3 (QUIC) to the proxy and
  running CONNECT/CONNECT-UDP through that proxy transport.
- `CAPSULE` - dedicated filter inserted between QUIC transport and
  HTTP-PROXY to handle datagram capsule encapsulation/decapsulation.

Here is how the curl filter chaining looks in different scenarios:
- HTTP/3 Proxy CONNECT (tunneling TCP protocols over QUIC proxy):
  conn -> HTTP/1.1 or HTTP/2  -> SSL -> HTTP-PROXY ->
                                 H3-PROXY -> HAPPY-EYEBALLS -> UDP
- MASQUE CONNECT-UDP (tunneling QUIC over any proxy):
  conn -> HTTP/3 -> CAPSULE -> HTTP-PROXY -> H3-PROXY ->
                               HAPPY-EYEBALLS -> UDP
  conn -> HTTP/3 -> CAPSULE -> HTTP-PROXY -> H1-PROXY or H2-PROXY ->
                               SSL -> HAPPY-EYEBALLS -> TCP

- Both features currently require the ngtcp2 QUIC backend.
- Both features are experimental (disabled by default). Enable with
  `--enable-proxy-http3`(autotools) or `-DUSE_PROXY_HTTP3=ON`(CMake).

Tests:
- tests/unit/unit3400.c: Unit tests for capsule protocol encode/decode
- tests/http/test_60_h3_proxy.py: Comprehensive pytest integration suite
- tests/http/testenv/h2o.py: Managing h2o instances with HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2,
  and HTTP/3 (QUIC) listeners, proxy.connect and proxy.connect-udp enabled.

References:
  RFC 9297 - HTTP Datagrams and the Capsule Protocol
  RFC 9298 - Proxying UDP in HTTP
  RFC 9000 §16 — Variable-Length Integer Encoding

Signed-off-by: Aritra Basu <aritrbas+gh@cisco.com>

Closes #21153
2026-05-27 08:49:53 +02:00

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Markdown

---
c: Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al.
SPDX-License-Identifier: curl
Long: proxy-http2
Tags: Versions HTTP/2
Protocols: HTTP
Added: 8.1.0
Mutexed: proxy-http3
Requires: HTTP/2
Help: Use HTTP/2 with HTTPS proxy
Category: http proxy
Multi: boolean
See-also:
- proxy
Example:
- --proxy-http2 -x proxy $URL
---
# `--proxy-http2`
Negotiate HTTP/2 with an HTTPS proxy. The proxy might still only offer HTTP/1
and then curl sticks to using that version.
This has no effect for any other kinds of proxies.
This option is mutually exclusive with `--proxy-http3`.