Web Browsing Behind ISA Server HOWTO: Method #1 - Enable Basic Authentication

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## 3. Method #1 - Enable Basic Authentication

As mentioned above, due to Integrated Authentication support configured on ISA server, third party browsers do not work behind it. In this situation you can make use of another authentication scheme called 'Basic Authentication', commonly supported by most browsers and most importantly by ISA Server too. If you work in a security conscious environment this method is not recommended since during basic authentication, the username and password sent are loosely encrypted.

The point here is that to proceed with this method you will have to make sure that you have legitimate access over configuring the ISA Server. If you cannot access the server configuration console, then move on to the second method in the following section.

## 3.1 Server Side Configuration

All you need to do is fire up 'ISA Management' and follow these steps:

1. Right-click your server and click on Properties.
2. Go to the Outgoing Web Requests tab, click the configured listener that you want to change, and then click Edit.
3. Click Basic authentication, and then select the domain in which the accounts exist that you want to authenticate.
4. Now it's time to move on to your Linux-based browser.

## 3.2 Client Side Configuration

In particular, we will take Netscape as an example here.

1. Start Netscape Communicator.
2. Click on the Edit menu and click Preferences.
3. Expand 'Advanced' node and click on 'Proxies'; you will see some options on the left.
4. Click on Manual proxy configuration, then click on the View button.
5. Put your ISA Server's IP address in the HTTP: box and the port where web cache is listening (usually 8080, depends what you set).
6. Click on OK to confirm your changes.
7. You will return back to the Preferences dialog.
8. Click on OK to apply your changes.

Load up a test url in your browser, it will ask you for authentication information, In place of user, type DOMAIN\USER, where your DOMAIN being the Windows domain, and USER being a legitimate domain user. In place of password, type the user's password. Click on OK to continue. For example:

    User: CABLENET\Raheel
    Password: Mypassword

    Where CABLENET is my domain, Raheel is the user id
    and Mypassword is my password.

You should now see the page loading successfully. If you use a different browser you will need to explore and see if it supports Basic Authentication.

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