Recently, I was working on an update for the PAC files we use at work. Had a clever idea for making clients more resilient in the event of an individual proxy failing – just list all the proxies in the PAC file, and use a bit of MATH to spread the load. This initially failed, but not for any of the reasons you might expect…
Continue reading “PAC Files and the Inconstant Constant”javascript
Location Awareness in Proxy PAC Files
Over the last few weeks, as mentioned before, my colleagues and I have been working to implement a proxy server solution. One of the more aggressive bugbears we’ve fought is the size and complexity of our network — we have dozens of different network segments, some of which have pre-existing proxies, many of which are out of my team’s control. Finding a solution that worked well, everywhere, was tricky. But we’ve made progress.
Uncle Dave’s Proxy Toolkit
At work, I’ve spent much of the last several weeks working on deploying a proxy service. A proxy is a service that can retrieve and cache Web pages on behalf of a large number of users.
In theory, you can use it to save bandwidth and protect your users by stopping viruses and such before they reach the users’ desktops. In practice, it’s mostly used to make sure your employees aren’t screwing around on Facebook at work.
