For how-to references a combination of google, wikipedia and this post are good places to start; I intend to document my experience you may find some overlap.

The 1st thing to understand is that Firefox (FF) and Internet Explorer (IE) both support an “automatically detect proxy” setting, but they are implement in different ways. Both FF & IE use a proxy.pac (also known as wpad.dat) for their configuration, they just “look for it” in different ways.

The proxy pac file is a java script that tells the browsers (both FF & IE) how to connect, there’s some good pac file examples here, this is what I did…

function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
{
	// The 1st if function tests if the URI should be by-passed…
	// Proxy By-Pass List
	if (
		// ignore RFC 1918 internal addreses
		isInNet(host, "10.0.0.0", "255.0.0.0") ||
		isInNet(host, "172.16.0.0", "255.240.0.0") ||
		isInNet(host, "192.168.0.0", "255.255.0.0") ||

		// is url is like http://server by-pass
		isPlainHostName(host) ||

		// localhost!!
		localHostOrDomainIs(host, "127.0.0.1") ||

		// by-pass internal URLS
		dnsDomainIs(host, ".mycompany.com") ||
		dnsDomainIs(host, ".mycompany.local")
		)

		// If True, tell the browser to go direct…
		return "DIRECT";

		// If False, it’s not on the by-pass then Proxy the request… if you fail to connect to the proxy, try direct.

return "PROXY 10.10.10.10:8080;DIRECT";

}

Once you’re happy with what you’ve written you need to “publish” the pac file on a webserver for your clients to download it… I’ve decided to use the bluecoat proxy SG.

Now you can’t upload the pac file via the GUI, you need to get down and dirty with the command line, below is an example ssh session…

Proxy> enable
Proxy# conf t
Proxy# inline accelerated-pac 123
....... Paste the contents of proxy.pac .......
123
Proxy#

Before going any further log into you’re bluecoat, make sure that under Services -> Proxy Services, HTTP 80 & 8080 are set to Intercept. Next check that Services -> Management services, HTTP-Console 8081 is enabled… this service will be used to get the pac file, leave HTTPS-Console 8082 on as using the 8081 for administrator access would be a bad idea.

You will now hopefully be able to download your pac file from the following url http://10.10.10.10:8081/accelerated_pac_base.pac .. change the IP as necessary.

Once that works we’re going to add some proxy policy to make that url (a) nicer (b) compatible with Firefox. In the Bluecoat GUI under policy (not the visual policy manager) make sure that the local policy is read 1st… at the top of the file list. The following ssh session of policy, re-writes the pac file for a variety of names, basically I’ve tried to capture every combination that a user might try…..

Proxy> enable
Proxy# conf t
Proxy# inline policy local 123
<proxy>
url=http://proxy.mycompany.local/proxy.pac authenticate(no)
url=http://proxy.mycompany.local/wpad.dat authenticate(no)
url=http://wpad.mycompany.local/wpad.dat authenticate(no)
url=http://www.wpad.com/wpad.dat authenticate(no)
url=http://proxy.mycompany.local:8081/accelerated_pac_base.pac authenticate(no)
url=http://10.10.10.10:8081/accelerated_pac_base.pac authenticate(no)

<cache>
url.domain=http://proxy.mycompany.local/proxy.pac cache(no)
url.domain=http://proxy.mycompany.local/wpad.dat cache(no)
url.domain=http://wpad.mycompany.local/wpad.dat cache(no)
url.domain=http://www.wpad.com/wpad.dat cache(no)
url.domain=http://proxy.mycompany.local:8081/accelerated_pac_base.pac cache(no)
url.domain=http://10.10.10.10:8081/accelerated_pac_base.pac cache(no)

<proxy>
url=http://proxy.mycompany.local/proxy.pac action.rewrite_pac(yes)
url=http://proxy.mycompany.local/wpad.dat action.rewrite_pac(yes)
url=http://wpad.mycompany.local/wpad.dat action.rewrite_pac(yes)
url=http://www.wpad.com/wpad.dat action.rewrite_pac(yes)
url=/wpad.dat action.rewrite_pac(yes)

define action rewrite_pac
rewrite(url,"(.*)","http://10.10.10.10:8081/accelerated_pac_base.pac")
end

123
Proxy#

Phew, thats the bluecoat side of things sorted, now we need to get clients to download the file! This is where the browser have different approaches….

Internet explorer uses DCHP Option 252 to detect the proxy, you can set the option of any of the URLS you’re re-writing on the bluecoat, I chose http://wpad.mycompany.local/wpad.dat .

Firefox uses DNS to detect the proxy, so you’re going to need to create some records… The bluecoat was called “proxy” so an A record for proxy.mycompany.local already existed, we created a CNAME record for wpad.mycompany.local pointing to proxy.mycompany.local … if your dns domain is something like uk.mycomany.local you’ll need to add cname records wpad.uk.mycompany.local & wpad.mycompany.local and add the necessary lines to the bluecoat rewire code above.

Once done you can set either browser to “automatically detect” and finger’s cross all will work!

One of the things that’s been a little frustrating has been having to manually accept/white list internal 192.168.1.1 type addresses. After a fruitless google, I’ve managed to find the answer here in the NoScript Forum.

There is one major limitation and that is the NoScript white list only accepts entries of more than one byte, this means that you cannot whitelist the whole of 10.*.*.* (10/8) as inputting 10. is only one byte. On the upside you can however whitelist a whole /16 (255.255.0.0) subnet, which works out nicely for the 192.168.0.0/16 set off addresses but for the 10′s & 172′s you’re a bit stuffed.

Now you may find that when you try to white list 10.123.0.0/16 that you have issues, I know I did! The trick is to read the forum post carefully. If you want to white list 10.123.0.0 through 10.123.255.255 then add the following:

http://10.123

https://10.123

That should allow both http & ssl traffic to all those internal addresses to be permitted by NoScript!

Dear googler, I hope this was of some help

I’ve recommended this plugin to a few friends and they love it, so if you’re looking for a new personal task managment solution then this is for you!

Remember The Milk – Services / Remember The Milk for Gmail
Remember The Milk for Gmail is a Firefox extension that allows you to manage your tasks in Gmail (complete, postpone, and edit tasks), add new tasks (and connect them with your emails, contacts, and Google Calendar events), automatically add tasks for starred messages or specific labels, and much more!

My firefox page is now back online, so check it out for a list of other useful plugins/addons.

Flashblock :: Firefox Add-ons
Never be annoyed by a Flash animation again! Blocks Flash so it won’t get in your way, but if you want to see it, just click on…

The white-list functionality is nice… i.e block all except “blah”.. the option to run it in a black-list mode would be good for those who are only offended by flash on certain sites.

FireGPG – use GPG easily in Firefox !
FireGPG is a Firefox extension under GPL which brings an interface to encrypt, decrypt, sign or verify the signature of a text in any web page using GnuPG.

Gmail Notifier :: Firefox Add-ons
A notifier for Gmail…

I’ve been using this for a while, and most firefox users probably have something in place already, so nothing new here, but I use my firefox page for prepping new installs, so perhaps this is more of a “post to self”

Google Reader Notifier | Firefox Add-ons | Mozilla Corporation Google Reader Notifier by Mark D.B.D This firefox extension shows you how many unread items you have in your Google Reader account.

Colorful Tabs | Firefox Add-ons | Mozilla Corporation
The most beautiful yet the simplest add-on that makes a strong colorful appeal. Colors every tab in a different color and makes them easy to distinguish while beautifying the overall appearance of the interface. An essential.

UPDATE: It seems that the Colorful Tabs authors homepage is down, as a result I appear to be getting hits from google and comments about features. I’d like to stress that I have nothing to do with the development of Colorful Tabs and you have my apologies if my post appeared that way. You have stumbled across a post from my firefox recommendations category where by I post links to firefox add-ons I like have installed and recommend to my friends.

CustomizeGoogle: Improve Your Google Experience — Firefox Extension
CustomizeGoogle is a Firefox extension that enhances Google search results by adding extra information (like links to Yahoo, Ask.com, MSN etc) and removing unwanted information (like ads and spam).

Nagios Checker | Firefox Add-ons | Mozilla Corporation
The statusbar indicator of the events from the network monitoring system Nagios. Information is parsed from Nagios web interface. In the extension settings dialog simply fill the start page URL of your Nagios web interface, eg. http://www.yourfirm.com/nagios/ and let the button to locate status script url.