Question

Automatic Proxy Configuration Script for proxy.pac file in Firefox?

Asked by: erndog5800

I am using a proxy.pac file shared off one of our web servers to point our users to an internal proxy server (ISA 2006).  This file lists exceptions for sites that cause problems with the proxy and also specifies when to use the proxy based on IP and subnet.  I am able to centrally configure our IE clients through Group Policy to point to the proxy.pac file, but I am unable to do anything similar for our Firefox users.  Is there a way to use a registry or logon script to enable and configure "Automatic Proxy Configuration URL" in Firefox?  

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Asked On
2007-05-21 at 11:27:15ID22585396
Tags

proxy

,

firefox

,

configuration

,

automatic

,

script

Topics

MS Forefront-ISA

,

Windows Networking

Participating Experts
1
Points
250
Comments
4

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Answers

 

by: dj_relentlessPosted on 2007-05-22 at 00:03:52ID: 19132142

Best way to achieve it I found was to create a duplicate pac files and rename it to a wpad.dat file.
Then create a dns wpad record (its just an arecord called wpad. Its points to the wpad file. When the browser is set to auto config it will check dns for the wpad file and set the proxy accordingly. Very useful for laptop users. The dns option is best because it works on win xp and w2k. I don't think the dhcp option works with win2k.
Check out this link, your looking for option 5
http://nscsysop.hypermart.net/setproxy.html

 

by: erndog5800Posted on 2007-05-22 at 11:48:59ID: 19136389

So wpad.dat and proxy.pac can be the same thing?  I hadn't realized that you can edit the wpad.dat.  This will solve some other problems I'm having.  I had originally set up DHCP to point to the proxy server for wpad.dat, but I couldn't figure out a way to make exceptions for certain sites.  I went  down the proxy.pac path, which seemed easier to manipulate, however I couldn't get machines to lose the settings they picked up from the wpad.dat, which essentially said all proxy all the time.  Thanks for this info.  It looks like I can edit both the proxy.pac AND the wpad.dat to cover everyone.  I will try this.

 

by: erndog5800Posted on 2007-05-23 at 06:52:58ID: 19141494

How do I ensure that firefox is set to autoconfig?  Can I do this with a script? Or is it set to this by default?

 

by: erndog5800Posted on 2007-05-29 at 06:44:08ID: 19172144

Here's what finally fixed this for me: I did some additional searching around and found that there are now .adm templates for Firefox group policy.  I used wetdog 0.9.

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Security/Operating_Systems_Security/Windows/Q_21907004.html

This solved my problem of auto-configuring Firefox to point to a proxy.pac or wpad.dat file.  While I could set up DHCP to point to the wpad.dat location per dj_relentless's link, I had no way to set Firefox to 'autoconfigure' and look for those files.  By using group policy for both IE and Firefox, I no longer need the DHCP option 252 and just use the auto-proxy configuration.  This also works for laptop users, because if they are offsite and do not see a wpad.dat or proxy.pac file, they just default to a direct connection.  

dj_relentless, I'm still giving you the points because your reply helped me make a custom wpad.dat.  As I stated before, I hadn't realized that you can simply rename the proxy.pac, and this helped me immensely.  Thanks!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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