WPAD Issues

[gsk]

I'm going to try and set this out as logically as I can because I've been working on it for some hours now...

I want to implement WPAD so that teachers can use their local user account both on our network and have internet access and also when they get home without having to do anything. At the moment, the proxy settings are defined in the profile and through GPO meaning they have to untick the 'use proxy server' box in LAN settings each time they want to use the net at home and then re-tick it when they want to use it at work.

Background info:
Windows Server 2003 R2 with IIS 6 as the main intranet server. computer name= intranet
Server2 has Windows Server 2003 R2 installed
DNS hosted on 'server2'
DHCP hosted on 'server2'
External proxy: proxy.embc.uk.com:80
I'm using IE7 to do the bulk of the testing, and will be using IE7, IE8, Firefox and Netscape once it's done.

What I've done so far.

*Created a .pac file called proxy.pac and put it on the the root of intranet

function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
{
var proxy_yes = "PROXY proxy.embc.uk.com:80";
var proxy_no = "DIRECT";
if (shExpMatch(url, "http://intranet*")) { return proxy_no; }
if (shExpMatch(url, "http://*.embc.uk.com*")) { return proxy_no; }
if (shExpMatch(url, "http://10.56.*")) { return proxy_no; }
if (shExpMatch(url, "http://eregistration*")) { return proxy_no; }
if (isInNet(myIpAddress(), "10.56.0.0", "255.255.252.0"))
return "PROXY proxy.embc.uk.com:80";
else
return "DIRECT";
}

*Created a .dat filed called wpad.dat and put it on the root of intranet (contents are the same as above)
*Added MIME Types in IIS for .pac and .dat with type value "application/octet-stream"
*Created option 252 in DHCP with value "http://intranet/wpad.dat"
*Created Cname record in DNS called wpad with FQDN of wpad.curriculum.school.co.uk pointing to intranet.curriculum.school.co.uk
*Created indentities in IIS for wpad.intranet to point to the same IP as intranet



I think I've got it all in there. Now the problems I'm having are:

*when I visit http://intranet/proxy.pac I get the options to Find, Save or Cancel. The same happens if I visit http://intranet/wpad.dat.
*when I add http://intranet/proxy.pac to 'Use automatic configuration script' it doesn't seem to work or do anything. No errors or anything, it's just as if I hadn't put anything in.
*When I check the box to 'Automatically detect proxy settings', it doesn't seem to do anything.
*When I visit http://wpad/ it loads the main intranet page but when i visit http://wpad/proxy.pac it doesn't do anything.

I think that's everything but if I come up with any more, i'll edit my post. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

Edits are in Italics

[DMcCoy]

Two things I can think of:

If it's IE6 then it's probably broken as wpad/pac detection can cut off the last letter of the file name.

If the DNS server is 2008 it will block the wpad dns entry (along with various others) by default and will need changing.

[gsk]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. I'm testing it on IE7 and will be using on IE7 and IE8. The DNS server is also on 2003 R2 and I've edited my post to add this in. Thanks again.

[tom_newton]

Suggest it might be a filetype issue... i'm not an iis man myself, but yu may need to tell the web server that this is a pac file, so it gives the browser the right MIME type.

FindProxyForURL.com - PAC & WPAD Resource might help.

[User3204]

I tried to set a wpad file up ages back, but in the end I gave up (If there was a bug with IE6, then this was probably my problem ), I may go back and try again.

What I did find later, when running Ethereal (sorry wireshark), there were references in there looking for wpad.sch.uk and wpad.region.sch.uk, but nothing I could see for wpad.network.school.region.sch.uk. According to the docs, it is supposed to go through them all (our AD is set as computername.network.school.region.sch.uk, so it does make sense).
It may be a good idea to load up wireshark and see if the machines are asking for the right thing, and then you can be sure that it is the server that is the problem (or not, as the case may be).

[tom_newton]

Sounds like gsk's problems are at a stage earlier than that - but if you do find DNS based distribution a bit problematic, I have found DHCP option 252 more reliable.

[mavhc]

As long as "ping wpad" works and "wget http://wpad/wpad.dat" works I've not had a problem, you can try setting the autoconfig proxy url to be http://wpad/wpad.dat and see if that works.

I have found problems when any static proxy is defined, even if it's unticked, fails to load anything the first time IE loads, waiting for timeout then reload/home works.

[gsk]

As long as "ping wpad" works and "wget http://wpad/wpad.dat" works I've not had a problem, you can try setting the autoconfig proxy url to be http://wpad/wpad.dat and see if that works.

I have found problems when any static proxy is defined, even if it's unticked, fails to load anything the first time IE loads, waiting for timeout then reload/home works.

I had 'ping wpad' working yesterday but then obviously got the wrong end of the stick when I was looking on the net further, because I changed it so that http://wpad.intranet.curriculum.school.co.uk/wpad.dat resolved properly. I still couldn't get IE to pick it up though.

I've been using ethereal today to have a look at the traffic the machine is sending out when I open IE. When i trie dto use the auto configure script using the .pac method it did the GET function but still didn't work and I can't see why. When i've had auto-detect proxy settings enabled, it didn't do any DHCP inform stuff, or any GET functions or anything containing WPAD, so I don't know what's happening there either.