Release Notes for iPlanet™ Web Proxy Server

Version 3.6 Service Pack 1

Part Number: 816-6147-10

Updated September 25, 2002

These release notes contain information about new features, known limitations,and migration procedures for iPlanet™ Web Proxy Server.

These release notes contain the following sections:


Supported Platforms

iPlanet Web Proxy Server 3.6 is supported on the following platforms:
Table 1-1 Supported Platforms
Operating System Architecture
Sun Solaris 8; Solaris 2.6 supported through binary compatibility UltraSPARC
Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Server with Service Pack 6a  Intel Pentium
Microsoft Windows 2000 Server with Service Pack 2 Intel Pentium
Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server with Service Pack 2 Intel Pentium
Hewlett-Packard HP-UX 11.0 with the following restrictions/recommendations: 
Make sure the maxfiles and maxfiles_lim kernel parameters must at least 2048, or the proxy server may exit.
PA-RISC
IBM AIX 4.3.3 Power PC


Required Patches

This section provides patch information for Solaris.

Sun Solaris Patch Information

All patches on Sun's recommended patch list should be installed. For Sun's recommended patch list, see http://sunsolve.sun.com/pubpatch.

For each patch, install the listed revision or a later revision. For example, if patch 111111-01 is required, the later revision 111111-03 will also work.

iPlanet Web Proxy Server 3.6 on Solaris 2.6 requires patch 105529 rev09 or later.



 

Memory Information

Depending upon the platform, each process uses the following amount of RAM when idle:
Table 1-2 Memory usage
Operating System Memory usage per process
Sun Solaris 8 5 MB per process (proxy server default is set to 32 processes)
Microsoft Windows NT4 & 2000 Server or Advanced Server 21 MB
Hewlett-Packard HP-UX 11.0  3.5 MB per process (proxy server default is set to 32 processes)
IBM AIX 4.3.3 3 MB per process (proxy server default is set to 32 processes)

When a process is active, the amount of RAM it uses may increase over a short period.
 


SSL Information

SSL information remains the same as in the previous version. The NT and Windows 2000 versions of iPlanet Web Proxy Server 3.6 do not support SSL.


Installation Information

We strongly recommend that no other iPlanet product be installed into the same UNIX directory path as the iPlanet Web Proxy Server product, as this may disable critical functionality required for the correct operation of the proxy server.

In addition, on a Windows NT or Windows 2000 machine, the proxy server should be installed independently of any other iPlanet product to avoid conflicts with DLLs.


Migration Information

This section includes migration information for installing  iPlanet Web Proxy Server 3.6.

Note If you used the virus scanning capability of Netscape Proxy Server 3.5x, turn virus scanning off before proceeding with the migration operation. To turn virus scanning off, select Filters | Virus Screening and click Turn off Virus screening.

Migrating  from Netscape Proxy Server 3.5x on NT

A file called NTmigration.htm and a script called cpProxyData.pl are provided to upgrade Proxy Server from a 3.5x version to a 3.6 version, keeping the same parameters and data. Please read NTmigration.htm for information on how to use the script to migrate your data from Netscape Proxy Server 3.5 to iPlanet Web Proxy Server 3.6.
Caution Do not use the option "Migrate from previous version" in the administration window. This link works only for Proxy Servers installed on UNIX systems.

Migrating from Netscape Proxy Server on UNIX

Use the option "Migrate from previous version" in the administration window to migrate from Netscape Proxy Server 3.5x to iPlanet Web Proxy Server 3.6.

Migrating Proxy Plug-ins on AIX

iPlanet Web Proxy Server 3.6 is built on AIX 4.3, which natively supports runtime linking. Consequently, NSAPI plug-ins (which reference symbols in the ns-proxy main executable) must be built using the -G option which specifies that symbols must be resolved at runtime.

Previous versions of iPlanet Web Proxy Server were built on AIX 4.1, which did not support native runtime linking. Plug-ins were enabled by building Proxy Server with additional software provided by IBM AIX to Netscape. No special runtime linking directives were required to build plug-ins. Because of this, plug-ins built for previous versions of Proxy Server on AIX will not work with iPlanet Web Proxy Server 3.6 without modification.

However, these plug-ins can easily be relinked to work with iPlanet Web Proxy Server 3.6. iPlanet provides a script to relink existing plug-ins. Only the existing plug-in is required to run the script (not the original source and .o files). Specific comments are provided within the script. Because all AIX versions from 4.2 onward natively support runtime linking, we do not anticipate this issue being a problem again for future iPlanet Web Proxy Server releases built on AIX.

Relink Script

The relink script, relink_36plugin, is located in the following directory: server_root/plugins (See relink_36plugin script for usage.)
#!/bin/ksh
#
# script to modify a plugin built for Netscape Proxy Server 3.5 to
# work with iPlanet Web Proxy Server 3.6
#
# usage: relink_plugin
#
# Script will create .new that will work with iPlanet Web Proxy Server 3.6
#
# If your plugin was built with a specific default LIBPATH, then
# you must modify the DEF_LIBPATH variable below. Run the command
# "dump -H " and your existing default LIBPATH will be listed
# as the PATH information by INDEX 0 under the ***Import File Strings***
# section.

DEF_LIBPATH=/usr/lib/threads:/usr/ibmcxx/lib:/usr/lib:/lib

# If your plugin has dependencies on other shared objects, then you
# must modify the LIB variable below to include those dependencies
# (e.g.
# if you need symbols from shared objects libusra.so, libusrb.so, & libusrc.so;
# you would specify LIBS="-lusra -lusrb -lusrc")
# Run the command "dump -H " to see if your plugin has
# any dependencies; they will be listed under the ***Import File Strings***
# section (Note: you don't have to specify system library dependencies
# such as libc.a, libc_r.a, etc.)

LIBS=

# Note: the following warnings may appear, but you can ignore them:
# ld: 0711-415 WARNING: Symbol __priority0x80000000 is already exported.
# ld: 0711-224 WARNING: Duplicate symbol: __priority0x80000000
# ld: 0711-224 WARNING: Duplicate symbol: .__priority0x80000000
# ld: 0711-345 Use the -bloadmap or -bnoquiet option to obtain more information.

# Note: If you are running with the AIX CSet++ 3.1.4 compiler instead of
# the CSet++ 3.6.4 compiler, then replace all references in this script
# to "ibmcxx" with "lpp/xlC".

/usr/bin/ld -bnso -r -o /tmp/obj.o $1
/usr/ibmcxx/bin/makeC++SharedLib_r -p 0 -G -blibpath:$DEF_LIBPATH $LIBS \
/tmp/obj.o -o $1.new



Problems Corrected

iPlanet Web Proxy Server 3.6 includes fixes to the following known problems that occurred in earlier releases:


Problems Corrected in SP1

This section lists problems corrected in iPlanet Web Proxy Server 3.6 SP1:


New Features

This section describes the new features and enhancements made in iPlanet Web Proxy Server 3.6.

Use of LDAP dynamic groups for authentication (4570987)

Proxy Server supports LDAP dynamic groups, in addition to LDAP static groups, for authentication, access control, and user and group management. Dynamic groups are managed via the LDAP server user interface. They are used in Proxy Server administration in the same way as static groups (by providing the name of the group to define ACLs).

This feature introduces two new configuration parameters in the configuration file magnus.conf:

Authentication/LDAP caching on NT (4571109)

Proxy Server can now cache LDAP information in a simple hash-based proxy authentication cache. LDAP caching reduces the load on your directory server and improves performance. The proxy authentication cache stores user password and user group information, which resides in memory.

From the administration user interface, you can enable and disable the authentication cache, configure the hash table size, configure the number of entries the cache holds, and set the entry expiration time.

The following is the obj.conf directive for enabling and disabling this feature:

Example : Init status="on" hash-size="271" table-size="1355" expire="3600" fn="init-pauth-cache"

Handling of LDAP server failover (4575151)

Proxy Server provides basic failover capability, so that it can serve requests when Directory Server is not running. Directory Server must still be running to administer Proxy Server through the administration console.

To add alternate LDAP servers, enter multiple host names in the Directory Server field in the administration console of Proxy Server, separated by a blank character. The LDAP port is common to all servers, so alternate servers must use the same LDAP port as configured in the administration console.

Proxy Server has two time-out values, one for the bind and one for searches. When a time-out is raised, Proxy Server retries to contact the failed LDAP server once. If Directory Server is unreachable, the current LDAP operation fails and all opened connections on the failed server are marked down. The next Proxy Server operation will use a new pool of connections to the next alternate server. Proxy Server does not switch back to the main LDAP server if it becomes available.

At start time, Proxy Server opens a set of connections to the LDAP directory server (see the LdapConnPool parameter). If the main server is unreachable, Proxy Server tries to switch to an alternate server and tries to open connections. If this procedure fails, an error is reported to the log.

No failover is implemented in the console, so the primary directory must be up and running to use the administration console.

You can configure server failover using two new parameters in the configuration file, magnus.conf:


New Features in SP1

This section describes the new features and enhancements in iPlanet Web Proxy Server 3.6 Service Pack 1.

Handling Client Authentication With Digital Certificates (4543418)

Proxy Server now provides user authentication facilities using digital authentication certificates. This is achieved with the certmap.conf file. Specifically, this certificate-mapping file determines how a server should look up a user entry in the LDAP directory. This file (located under <server_root>/userdb) can be edited and entries added to match the organization of your LDAP directory and to list the certificates you want your users to have.

Specifically, the mapping file defines:

A mapping has the following syntax:

certmap name issuerDN
name:property [value]

The first line specifies a name for the mapping. The name is arbitrary; you can define it to be whatever you want. However, issuerDN must match the distinguished name of the certificate authority who issued the client certificate. For example, the following two issuerDN lines differ only in the spaces separating the components, but the server treats these two entries as different:

Certmap Iplanet1 ou=Red Certificate Authority,o=iPlanet,c=US
Certmap Iplanet2 ou=Red Certificate Authority, o=iPlanet, c=US

The second and subsequent lines in the named mapping match properties with values. The certmap.conf file has six standard properties. You can use the Certificate-Mapping API to create your own custom properties.

To enable/disable this feature, a new magnus.conf variable has been added with two possible values (ON/OFF). The feature is disabled (OFF) by default. To enable the feature, use the following syntax:

CertificateChecking ON

ACL's and Authentication with certificates

When you declare allowed users and/or groups, remember that the written ACL file uses the UID field for authentication (basic or SSL) at a later stage. In the case of SSL authentication, the client certificate is used for this purpose.

The proxy attempts to match the certificate presented by the user with the credentials of the user stored in the LDAP Directory Server, following the search criteria defined in the certmap.conf file. If this step was successful the proxy attempts to match the UID extracted from the certificate with the name of the user stored in the ACL file.

Therefore, the UID field must exist within the client certificate. If the UID field is not found in the user certificate, the proxy will use the CN (Common Name) field to match the name stored in the generated ACL file, by default.


Installation procedure of SP1 on Unix

To install the binary, proceed as follows:

  1. Shut down the Admin Server and all instances of the Proxy Server before installation.

  2. Backup everything under <server-root>.

  3. Untar the SURF-Pack distribution.

  4. cd iproxy-3.6-us directory

  5. At the command line, enter: ./ns-setup

  6. When the installation script prompts you for your server root directory, enter the name of the directory where your Proxy Server is installed. The installation script will install the patched versions.

  7. Start up the Admin Server and all desired Proxy Server instances (if they were not shut down and started up by the SURF-Pack installer).

Installation procedure of SP1 on Windows

To install the binary, proceed as follows:

  1. Backup everything under <server root> (normally c:\WINNT\Netscape\SuitSpot).

    Under this directory you should see the following:

    This will create a copy of all configuration files, proxy instances, etc.

  2. Stop the Proxy and Admin Server. Uninstall the Proxy, using the binary <server root>\uninst.exe. Uninstall the Admin Server.

  3. Remove everything under <server root> manually. Take care to remove only the directories and files concerning the Proxy (in case the customer is running additional Netscape applications). Refer to step (1) for more information.

  4. Reinstall the Proxy in the same directory as the old Proxy, using the binary provided. Enter the same information as in the previous installation (the same admin password, admin port, proxy port, and binding information to the LDAP directory server, if applicable).

  5. After installation from a DOS prompt, stop the Proxy and Admin Server. Copy all the configuration files from the back-up Proxy copy into the correct location (admin config files, proxy config files, and acl files). This process can be cumbersome, depending on the customer configuration. Not all the files shown below must be copied (files to be copied depend on the customer configuration):

    < tr> < tr> < tr> < tr> < tr>
    adminacl -> Admin acl files
    admin-serv \config -> Admin config files
    httpacl -> Proxy acl's
    proxy-"name machine"\config\ -> Proxy config files (if there is more instances process must be repeated with each of them)
    proxy\cache -> Cache of proxy
    userdb -> If using local database instead of LDAP directory server

  6. Start the Admin Server, then start the Proxy Server.

    Virus Scanning

    Virus scanning is not supported in iPlanet Web Proxy Server 3.6.


    Troubleshooting


    Known Problems


    How to Report Problems

    If you have problems with Sun ONE Proxy Server, contact customer support at the following location:

    So that we can best assist you in resolving problems, please have the following information available when you contact support:


    For More Information

    For more information on Sun ONE Web Proxy Server, refer to the following documentation:

    Further information can be found at the following Internet locations:


    Use of Sun ONE Web Proxy Server is subject to the terms described in the license agreement accompanying it. Copyright © 2002 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.