We do have isInNet() in use.  The problem is that staff can log onto both staff 
& student wired subnets, where students can only log onto student wired 
subnets.  At elementary sites, this happens all the time, and if a staff member 
was determined by the IP they come from, they could not use Youtube as 
needed--it would send them to the proxy for whitelist only (or not allow it at 
all).  At secondary (grades 6 to 12), staff logging onto student wired IPs is 
not allowed in general, but is available in certain specially IP addressed 
student labs where trainings happen at regular intervals.  Cutting those ranges 
out would be possible, but would make the pac file extremely long, and it 
doesn't fix the elementary issue (they are normally summarized in a larger 
range for student addresses).

So in other words, knowing the IP they come from isn't enough for us to know 
who it is in our current setup.  We have to be able to assign that by actual 
users, which is why we're using two .pac files.

Our network admin had tossed in the alerting as well so we could see when 
things were working, and that was very useful.  BTW, we couldn't get it to work 
on Win8.1 machines with IE 11--do you know of a way, or is it just IE 11?

They are discussing transparent proxy and looking at various appliances, but 
money for what is needed doesn't come in until next year (after September), 
assuming it can be afforded.  I'm sure it will eventually happen though--too 
many exceptions for cloud-based apps & sites (like Itunes).  A lot of things 
have been changing rapidly as we passed a bond last year to deploy 
district-wide wireless, and that is still being installed.  Prior to the bond, 
wireless availability was very limited and only set up & locked for specific 
systems (such as POS stations on carts for serving breakfast & lunch).

Thanks for all the tips, tricks, and ideas!  I'm just glad we can make it work 
now with Java, and we need to get upgraded anyway, so this is pushing that.

-B

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On 
Behalf Of Joseph L. Casale
Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2015 5:52 AM
To: '[email protected]'
Subject: RE: [NTSysADM] RE: Java and proxy.pac

> Over the years, it's a pain as staff have to toggle proxy off when 
> they take devices like laptops home, as well as modify multiple policies when 
> adding a new bypass setting.

I mitigate this with isInNet(). The ruleset makes the distinction for the user. 
I distribute proxy settings via dhcp/dns and when a remote vpn user without 
their gateway redirected acquires an ip on their tunnel interface, their 
browser would otherwise redirect without this.

> then the kids take it off on purpose and complain it doesn't work to 
> get out of classwork

Lol, no matter what you do, someone will find a way, however a transparent 
proxy could help this. Kids...

> We need two separate sets of settings for one DNS domain, so wpad 
> publishing just isn't the best option for us.

Well, obviously I don't know your environment as well you, however I would 
suggest revisiting the plethora of potential rulesets you can setup in the pac 
file, you may just be surprised at what you can automate which would greatly 
simplify things imho.

When I am testing changes or complex rulesets, if the control flow isn't 
obvious I'll throw in alert() calls then as the browser is processing the 
ruleset, message boxes appear.

jlc





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