Proxy Servers for windows NT

[Karen G. Schneider]

Peter Murray's class is excellent--I took it several months ago when NYLink
offered this institute, and thought it was very useful.  The demos of
implementing proxy servers really helped me grasp some concepts of proxying
that had formerly eluded my cranium.  (Plus, I won a free book in a raffle!)

I wasn't completely sure what Peter meant by MS Proxy not supporting
filtering--it does, but very crudely; you can use stoplists or go-lists, but
you can't use different lists per machine or do stoplists for some and
golists for others.  (It also supports packet filtering, which is another
story entirely.)  I haven't tried to establish a second proxy... not sure
it's feasible in MSP 2.0.

For more specific management, I've tried several third-party products (as MS
refers to any product it doesn't directly profit from) and think I-Gear is
the best I've come across so far in terms of ease of use, stability,
customization, and user support.   However, for our site, at the moment, we
are using MSP's Web Proxy to limit our catalog and database machines.  It
works fine.  We do not have a problem with patrons trying to sneak around
the catalog to get to our commercial databases... if only we did.  :-)
(Like many libraries, we have a great selection of databases and find the
battle is to teach patrons that they exist and how to use them.  They love
'em once they find them.)  However, if I ever get the yen to create express
mailstations, I'll get I-Gear, then customize it so that the mailstations
are limited to mail sites.

Karen G. Schneider kgs at bluehighways.com
Assistant Director, Shenendehowa Public Library, NY
http://www.shenpublib.org