Mac OS X Server version 10.5: Configuring forward Web Proxy

Issue or symptom

Users connecting to your Mac OS X Server version 10.5 Web Proxy server cannot connect to the Internet, or load the Mac OS X Server's Web page when trying to connect to other sites.

Solution

To configure Web service forward proxy settings:

1. Open Server Admin and connect to the server.
2. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the server. The list of services appears.
3. From the expanded Servers list, choose Web.
4. Click Settings, then click Proxy.
5. Click (check) the Enable Forward Proxy checkbox. If a forward proxy server is enabled, each site on the server can be used as the proxy.
6. Click the "Control Access To Proxy" checkbox to limit access and then enter the domain name that is permitted access in the “Allowed Domain” field. Generally, when limiting who can use your Web server as a proxy, you should limit access to a specific domain. Users in that domain may obtain access.
7. Create the Cache Folder. In a terminal window, enter:

sudo mkdir /var/run/proxy
sudo chown www:www /var/run/proxy 

Note: This is the default cache folder. You can choose or create a different folder for the cache, but you must make sure that the owner and group are both www and have read and write access. To choose a different folder, click the Choose... button or type the path into the Cache Folder field in Server Admin. If you are administering a remote server, File service must be running on the remote server to use the Choose... button.

8. Set the disk cache target size and set an interval for emptying the cache. When the cache reaches this size, the oldest files are deleted from the cache folder.
9. To add a host to block, click the Add (+) button and enter its URL. Add the names of all hosts you want to block. You can import a list of websites by dragging the list to the list of blocked hosts. The list must be a text file with the host names separated by commas or tabs (also known as csv and tsv strings). Make sure the last entry in the file is terminated with a carriage return/line feed; otherwise, it is overlooked.
10. Click Save.
11. Click the Sites tab and select the default site (the one whose Address is listed as "*").
12. Click the Aliases tab.
13. Select the Alias listed as "*".
14. Click the minus ( "-") button to delete the Alias.
15. Click Save.