iOS and Authenticating Web Proxies

As iPad and iPhone usage becomes more prevalent in schools we are finding many iOS applications; first-party as well as third-party, have poor support for authenticating web proxies such as Getbusi Alert/Advance. This usually manifests itself as Apps either continually prompting for authentication credentials, even when they're entered correctly, or just inexplicable failure of the app to load its content. The level of compatibility varies from app to app.

Two significant examples of this are the iTunes and App Store apps as well as the iOS video player component, regardless of the video source. While these issues can be mitigated on an app-by-app basis by adding the app's servers to the Direct Access list, this is generally impractical administration-wise.

What is a practical way to resolve these issues? We recommend using Computer Groups. This feature allows you to assign web access policies to devices based on theirIP addressrather than to a user that must authenticate. A computer group can contain individual IPs and/or IP ranges.

Because a device in a computer group is not required to provide user authentication, reporting data will no longer be tied to a specific user, rather it will be tied to the device. This means that you will not easily be able to verifywhoaccessed a particular resource though Getbusi 3.5's reports, but you will be able to identify the device. Please consider this when you are implementing the feature.

For more information on Computer Groups please see section 11, page 66 of the Getbusi Alert/Advance User Guide.