Administering Security with Office Server Extensions

Using a Proxy Server with Office Server Extensions

If you plan to make your Web server available on the Internet, and if you want to limit inbound and outbound access to your intranet, then you need to use a proxy server such as Microsoft Proxy Server. A proxy server is also called a firewall.

By using a proxy server, you can control how remote clients — such as users connecting over the Internet — access your server applications. A proxy server can also help you control how users within your local network access external servers.

When you use a proxy server with Microsoft Office Server Extensions (OSE), the following requirements and limitations apply.

• You must use Basic authentication to secure logons to your OSE-extended web.

  To maximize security, use Basic authentication with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption. This combination prevents network eavesdroppers from viewing client/server conversations on your OSE-extended web.

  Note   IIS does not support Windows NT Challenge/Response authentication across a proxy server.

• OSE functions only with a proxy server that does not require authentication.

  Some proxy servers require clients to log on to the proxy server before establishing a connection to the Internet and an intranet. OSE does not function across proxy servers that require this type of authentication. You can configure Proxy Server to require clients to log on to the proxy server, but you must not configure the Proxy Server this way if you want to use it with OSE.

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See also

It is highly recommended that you use a proxy server if you are connecting your Web server to the Internet. For more information about Microsoft Proxy Server, see the Microsoft Proxy Server Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/proxy/.