Comment 7 for bug 994569

After confirming with Mathieu, I have verified that setting both http_proxy and https_proxy environment variables will allow add-apt-repository to work as expected.

Here is an example :

root@PreciseS-kdump:~# export http_proxy="http://10.1.1.3:3128"
root@PreciseS-kdump:~# add-apt-repository -r ppa:canonical-support/support-tools
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/add-apt-repository", line 125, in <module>
    ppa_info = get_ppa_info_from_lp(user, ppa_name)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/softwareproperties/ppa.py", line 84, in get_ppa_info_from_lp
    curl.perform()
pycurl.error: (7, "couldn't connect to host")
root@PreciseS-kdump:~# export https_proxy="http://10.1.1.3:3128"
root@PreciseS-kdump:~# add-apt-repository -r ppa:canonical-support/support-tools
You are about to remove the following PPA from your system:
 Data collection and diagnostic tools useful for technical support
 More info: https://launchpad.net/~canonical-support/+archive/support-tools
Press [ENTER] to continue or ctrl-c to cancel removing it

So both http_proxy and https_proxy must be setup to point to the proxy, since the add-apt-repository command itself require this information accessible

I have marked the task "Fix released" as the command works correctly