FAQs

Off-site Proxy FAQs

What is it?

The off-site proxy allows use of our web proxy caches from computers that are not on the University's network.

Who can use it and do I need a separate registration?

All members of the University can use this service. The only requirement is that you have an account in the UOB domain. All users with @bristol.ac.uk email accounts have UOB accounts - if you do not know your password, please contact (or visit) the Computer Centre Help Desk who will be able to assist. However, temporary and guest usernames will not give access to this service.

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Why might I want to use it?

Many sites identify University of Bristol users by their IP address. This only works if they are using a computer on our network (or are connected to our VPN service. However, if you access their site via our proxy servers, the connection comes from a system on the University's network, and hence the site will allow access. This access control method is used by many online ("electronic") journal sites, as well as some pages on the University's web server.

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How do I use the service?

Please refer to the instructions for browser configuration.

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How will this affect other people who use my computer?

This question is answered in a separate document: How does it affect other users of the computer?.

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My password doesn't work - why?

First, remember that you need to use your UOB username and password — the one you use to access your University email account. If you're using your Athens logon details, you won't be able to gain access However, if you're sure you're trying to use the right password and find it doesn't work, then check you haven't got Caps Lock switched on — passwords are case-sensitive.

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My browser sometimes uses the service, but sometimes doesn't - why?

If you're using a dialup connection, you must ensure that the connection is up before you start your browser. If the connection isn't available, some browsers (of which Internet Explorer is one) will silently fail to download the proxy configuration file, and hence will not know that they should send certain requests to the University's proxy servers.

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Why does my username and password not work with Internet Explorer on Windows Vista?

The off-site proxy works well with Internet Explorer 6 or 7 on Windows XP. Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista sometimes fails to recognise your standard username and password. If that happems try entering your username with UOB\ in front. For example if your username is ab1234, type UOB\ab1234. Alternatively Firefox works fine with the proxy on all versions of Windows.

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Is there any software that doesn't work with this service?

We maintain a list of software with known problems (as reported by users). The fact that a specific piece of software is not listed doesn't mean that we know it works, just that we haven't heard that it doesn't work.

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Don't I need to obtain a special proxy server password that changes daily?

This service used to use a special password that changed on a daily basis. This was to protect the security of users' UOB passwords. We've now installed an updated version of the proxy server software (Squid) that can use a secure method of authentication that does not allow the UOB password to be intercepted during authentication.

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What protocol does the service use?

The service is implemented using a standard http proxy server, as defined in RFC2616. Unauthenticated users who access a resource requiring authentication receive an HTTP 407 error (see section 10.4.8 of RFC2616). The proxy server accepts "NTLM Authentication".;

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I have a question not on the list above

Please contact the IT Service Desk.

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