Caching Pages That Require Authentication

You can have your server cache files that require user authentication. The Proxy Server tags the files in the cache so that it can require authentication from the remote server if a user asks for them.

Because the Proxy Server cannot determine how remote servers authenticate and it does not have a list of users’ IDs or passwords, it will simply force an up-to-date check with the remote server each time a request is made for a document that requires authentication. The user therefore must type an ID and password to gain access to the file. If the user has already accessed that server earlier in the browser session, the browser automatically sends the authentication information without prompting the user.

If you do not enable the caching of pages that require authentication, the proxy does not cache them, which is the default behavior.