Can't start Privoxy

Question

I can't start Privoxy for some reason :

service privoxy start

will output

Job for privoxy.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status privoxy.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

systemctl status privoxy.service

● privoxy.service - Privacy enhancing HTTP Proxy
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/privoxy.service; disabled; vendor preset:
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Mon 2016-09-19 10:50:50 UTC; 11s ago
     Docs: man:privoxy(8)
           https://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/
  Process: 3262 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/privoxy --pidfile $PIDFILE --user $OWNER $CO

Sep 19 10:50:49 kali systemd[1]: Starting Privacy enhancing HTTP Proxy...
Sep 19 10:50:50 kali systemd[1]: privoxy.service: Control process exited, code=e
Sep 19 10:50:50 kali systemd[1]: Failed to start Privacy enhancing HTTP Proxy.
Sep 19 10:50:50 kali systemd[1]: privoxy.service: Unit entered failed state.
Sep 19 10:50:50 kali systemd[1]: privoxy.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'

Log :

2016-09-19 10:35:05.484 7fe373dd1700 Fatal error: can't bind to ::1:8118: Cannot assign requested address
2016-09-19 10:35:33.272 7f7512246700 Fatal error: can't bind to ::1:8118: Cannot assign requested address
2016-09-19 10:37:58.969 7f6bbc389700 Fatal error: can't bind to ::1:8118: Cannot assign requested address
2016-09-19 10:39:44.995 7f2b8b7ec700 Fatal error: can't bind to ::1:8118: Cannot assign requested address
2016-09-19 10:44:46.947 7fbba1eb3700 Fatal error: can't bind to ::1:8118: Cannot assign requested address
2016-09-19 10:48:51.484 7ff41042d700 Fatal error: can't bind to ::1:8118: Cannot assign requested address
2016-09-19 10:49:50.892 7f567ae44700 Fatal error: can't bind to ::1:8118: Cannot assign requested address
2016-09-19 10:50:49.124 7f49474de700 Fatal error: can't bind to ::1:8118: Cannot assign requested address
2016-09-19 10:55:26.675 7fae40333700 Fatal error: can't bind to ::1:8118: Cannot assign requested address
2016-09-19 11:13:19.510 7f8026d78700 Fatal error: can't bind to ::1:8118: Cannot assign requested address
2016-09-19 11:13:48.943 7f1573db9700 Fatal error: can't bind to ::1:8118: Cannot assign requested address
2016-09-19 11:14:52.538 7fa238a61700 Fatal error: can't bind to ::1:8118: Cannot assign requested address
2016-09-19 12:21:53.148 7fd07ed37700 Fatal error: can't bind to ::1:8118: Cannot assign requested address
2016-09-19 12:27:07.636 7fee46c21700 Fatal error: can't bind to ::1:8118: Cannot assign requested address
2016-09-19 12:48:43.332 7f6130688700 Fatal error: can't bind to ::1:8118: Cannot assign requested address
2016-09-19 14:33:55.284 7f2901d3e700 Fatal error: can't bind to ::1:8118: Cannot assign requested address
2016-09-19 14:34:01.923 7f03e25d8700 Fatal error: can't bind to ::1:8118: Cannot assign requested address
2016-09-19 14:36:46.247 7fa5233a9700 Fatal error: can't bind to ::1:8118: Cannot assign requested address
2016-09-19 15:39:00.351 7f099af89700 Fatal error: can't bind to ::1:8118: Cannot assign requested address

Answer 1

Your problem was that Privoxy was trying to bind to the IPv6 loopback address; for some reason it was unable to do this. Even if it had succeeded, you wouldn't have been able to connect to it by any means other than that address.

By setting listen-address to your system's IP address, Privoxy has been instructed to listen on that address so that you can connect to it from a different machine.

It is very important that you now check that unauthorised systems—particularly those on the open Internet—are prevented from connecting to your Privoxy instance by a firewall or some other means.