Access to network resources

[Stu Baker]

Lisa:

At Northwestern University we have been using a Proxy Server to solve this
problem and it has worked fairly well. Our patrons use their NetID (used to
access all network services) after configuring their web browser (Netscape
works best for this). Unfortunately most vendors have not standardized on IP
authentication for access to their databases so they may need to still login
to a remote database as well. However, the use of Proxy on our campus has
greatly reduced the problems we were having with "restricted access" for
remote users.

There is more on our Proxy server setup at:
        <http://www.library.nwu.edu/help/proxy/>

I should also point out that our newest problem with Proxy is that we are
now encountering patrons who are accessing our resources via a corporate
network that is already using Proxy services to control access for their
employees. Thus they can't reconfigure their browser to use our Proxy
Server. One of our gifted programmers is working on writing his own proxy
server that will solve this problem and be more secure. I will post to
web4lib on this once we have gone beyond prototype stage. This new method
uses SSL on a secure server. This allows the user to point to a URL (instead
of configuring their web browser) for access to our resources.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
# Stu Baker #				Marjorie I. Mitchell Multimedia Center
Multimedia Services Specialist			Northwestern University
<mailto:stubaker at nwu.edu>			1935 Sheridan Road
<http://www.library.nwu.edu/staff/stubaker/>	Evanston, IL 60208-2323
* voice: 847.467.1984 * fax: 847.491.8306