One document matched: draft-kwan-proxy-client-conf-00.txt

INTERNET-DRAFT                                            Stuart L. Kwan
<draft-kwan-proxy-client-conf-00.txt>              Microsoft Corporation
                                                              March 1997
                                                  Expires September 1997


           DHCP Option for Proxy Client Configuration File
 

Status of this Memo

  This document is an Internet-Draft.  Internet-Drafts are working
  documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas,
  and its working groups.  Note that other groups may also distribute
  working documents as Internet-Drafts.

  Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
  and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
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Abstract

  Application-level gateways are used on networks to provide controlled
  access to the Internet.  Clients in those networks must be configured
  with the name or address of available proxy servers, the list of
  local domain names, and other proxy client configuration information
  before they can access the Internet.  The defacto method of proxy
  client configuration is the download of a script or configuration
  file named by a URL.  This document describes a DHCP option in which
  to transmit this URL to a proxy client.











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1. Introduction

  Application-level gateways are used on networks to provide controlled
  access to the Internet.  Clients in those networks must be configured
  with the names or addresses of available proxy servers, the list of
  local domain names, and other proxy client configuration information
  before they can access the Internet.
       
  The defacto method of proxy client configuration is the download of
  a script or configuration file named by a URL. The URL scheme is
  flexible, but suffers from two limitations.  One, the URL must
  typically be hand-typed into each proxy client on each host.  Two,
  the configuration settings are usually only useful on one network.
  If the host is mobile and travels to a different network with
  different proxy servers, or is connected directly to the Internet,
  then the persisted proxy settings will be invalid and the URL no
  longer reachable or valid.

  This document describes a DHCP option in which to transmit this
  URL to a proxy client.  Using this option network administrators
  can select the proxy client configuration on a per-network basis.
  Roaming hosts can discover if they have been connected to a network
  with proxy-controlled Internet access.


2. Proxy Client Configuration File

  The format and interpretation of the file that is referenced by
  the proxy configuration URL is not discussed in this document.
  Currently the interpretation of this file is non-standard and
  vendor-specific.

  Until there exists a standard for proxy client configuration,
  it is recommended that proxy client software search all the URLs 
  sent in the DHCP option for a configuration file that the 
  software can understand.













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3. Proxy-Client Configuration URL Option

  This option specifies a list of URLs from which proxy clients may
  obtain proxy client configuration files.

  URLs SHOULD be listed in order of preference.

  The code for this option is TBD.  Its minimum length is 1.

   Code  Len   Proxy Client Configuration URLs
  +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+---
  | TBD |  n  |  n1 |  n2 |  n3 |  n4 | ...
  +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+---


4. Security Considerations

  Security issues are not discussed in this document.


5. Acknowledgements

  The author would like to thank Yaron Goland, Arnold Miller, and
  Hadi Partovi for their assistance in creating this document.


6. References

  [1] Droms, R., "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol", RFC 1541,
      Bucknell University, October 1993.


7.  Author Information

  Stuart L. Kwan
  Microsoft Corporation
  One Microsoft Way   
  Redmond, WA 98052-6399
       
  Phone: 1.206.936.0564
  Email: skwan@microsoft.com










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