Auto Detect Proxy Server

[steveo2000]

Ok, Where to start! In are school teachers have a lot of laptops that they use locally therefore not picking up the proxy settings with out putting them in. What I want to do is to still allow people to bring in there laptops and just have them have the Auto Detect internet settings on. I hope this is making sense! I found this article:

Automatic Discovery for Firewall and Web Proxy Clients

This seems to explain what I want to do but im totally confused! are proxy is:
proxy.embc.uk.com and the port is 80 plus theirs the usual proxy bypass exceptions. How on earth do I set this up! I very briefly saw it in my old school something to do with a WPAD file. Please Help any info anyone needs I will be happy to help out!

Thanks

[powdarrmonkey]

Google is your friend:

[ame=http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=wpad&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=]wpad - Google Search[/ame]

[dalsoth]

If they are school laptops could you not set this up through group policy?

If they are not school laptops and they are personal, i would have strong reservations about letting them loose on the network without suitable VLans etc..

We have had consultancy work done here and have seen the results that can be achieved by non school laptops connecting to the school system. Not pretty.

[steveo2000]

There school teacher laptops they sign on locally to, the problem being is when they go home they have to remove the proxy server settings for them to get onto there home network, setting it up to auto detect in the school really helped at my last place. Forgive my lack of knowledge on how you go about doing this its one of those things you see and wonder how the heck you do it!

[dalsoth]

We installed Firefox on all laptops for use at home. We then configured internet explorer to go through the school proxy and restricted the staff from accessing the connections tab to change it.

Staff can use firefox at home and have to use internet explorer when at school.

There is also a proxy switcher program available i think which makes it easy to swap from each location that you can set up as a network package to roll out to laptops. Think this is the link to the proxy switcher. Not used it before except to try on my own computer. Looked quite nifty but i only checked it out for 2 mins and moved on to something else

[mossj]

We use a simple .bat script that hacks the registry, one called home, one called work... waked them on the staff laptops desktop.. and even the most basic users can work that....

I don't have it at home but I will post it tommorow if you like.

[ozzy]

Proxy On Proxy Off App try this from Craigg.

[steveo2000]

Cheers for the suggestions guys, but I really want to get the WPAD way working properly if I can. Anyone got any suggestions?

Thanks

[Jobos]

If your running ISA server you can publish the proxy settings then use DHCP to tell the laptops where to find it.

[blacksheep]

If they are not school laptops and they are personal, i would have strong reservations about letting them loose on the network without suitable VLans etc..

I completely agree. You would need to have a seperate untrusted (bit like a DMZ) area for public use.

Any good network manager shouldnt allow this IMO. I dont even let them put their phone on (mind, you
want to see the length of my WPA key lol). I am generally thought of as a bit paranoid here, I seem to have to explain this every year to trainees and have already done it with the staff. My current wording is 'for various reasons' I will not allow anyone on the school wireless. Try explaining about key security, lack of AV, lack of locked down laptop with any hacking utils possible etc..
Even have had some hot lady trainees fluttering their eyelids at me

I give them a 'local' account for home use and they are usually just 'users'. I have gone as far as given a few local admin rights (that is because I almost need to let things go wrong for staff to see why).

Even a non admin account (which is best) allows them to add their home wireless and run a web-browser ok. I also have issues with them saving work to redirected areas, and havent got around to setting up offline-folders and even if I had that there would be other issues with the Domain account.

I have setup a link to the local account desktop on the domain account so they can see any work they have saved on the laptop. They are warned about lack of network backups but this is the quick solution that works for me.

We have 2 proxys on our Curriculum network, one is GP based but I also setup changes via registry. You can do it in a logon script (can run within user security)

ie. YOURPROXY:PORT# and the override section is you local network address.
-----------------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Internet Settings]
"ProxyEnable"=dword:00000001
"ProxyOverride"="172.21.*;<local>"
"ProxyServer"="YOURPROXY:8080"
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An example bat file to switch it (mine changes based on what the machines IP address is)


------------------------------------------------------

ipconfig | find "172.21.153." > NUL
If %errorlevel% == 0 goto Setup_special_proxy

REM otherwise run on to normal proxy..

:Setup_normal_proxy
@echo setting up pupil proxy..
regedit /s \\YOURSERVER\netlogon\dl_p1.reg
goto exit

:Setup_special_proxy
@echo setting up staff proxy..
regedit /s \\YOURSERVER\netlogon\dl_p2.reg
:exit
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Our Careers use a switching program as they move schools, works well!