[Popcon-developers] question regarding http submission and http proxy

[shirish शिरीष]

Hi all,
      I do not have an MTA installed. I installed the
popularity-contest very recently. I also went to popcon FAQ page
http://popcon.debian.org/FAQ

and saw this :-

Q) My system is unable to send email out to the Internet.  How can I
participate ?

A) Since version 1.30 of popularity-contest, it is possible to use HTTP
as the transport protocol.  This is the default for new installations,
but needs to be manually enabled for old installations.  To enable it,
run this commmand as root:

  dpkg-reconfigure popularity-contest

Q) How can I specify a HTTP proxy server for the HTTP submission ?

Popularity-contest honors the environment variable http_proxy that you can
set in /etc/environment. Alternatively you can specify a proxy server
specifically for popularity-contest by adding a line

HTTP_PROXY="http://<proxy hostname>:<port>"
to /etc/popularity-contest.conf.

I am sorry I am new to the Debian world.

This is the configuration in my /etc/popularity-contest.conf

MY_HOSTID="alphanumericmask"
PARTICIPATE="yes"
USEHTTP="yes"
DAY="6"

Now would that just do it by itself or do I need to do any more changes?

I am a bit confused about the http proxy server business. Is that
needed in case the an MTA (mail transfer agent) is not set up.

Somehow do feel that the document is incomplete and doesn't give
enough directions for guys not using servers.

The machine in question is a desktop.

Please let me know if any more information is required.

Looking forward for clarifications/information.
-- 
          Regards,
          Shirish Agarwal  शिरीष अग्रवाल
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