Determining Client Types

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

ISA Server supports the following types of clients.

Web Proxy client

Makes all Internet requests to the ISA Server "Outgoing Web Requests" listener. Most often, this is a Web browser that is either configured manually by the user, or is configured automatically by using Group Policy or a configuration script. ISA restricts user-based Web access controls to Web Proxy clients only.

SecureNAT client

Provides IP-based security, but does not allow for user-level authentication. To configure a SecureNAT client, you only have to set the default route between the client and the ISA Server default internal IP address. Because a SecureNAT client uses no other configuration, any computer that uses TCP/IP can be a SecureNAT client.

Firewall client

Restricts access on a per-user, per-application basis for outbound access for requests that use Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP). To configure a firewall client, you must install the Firewall Client software on each client computer. You can install the Firewall Client software from the shared folder \\ISA Server Name\mspclnt on the ISA Server–based computer.

You can only install the Firewall Client software on computers running Microsoft® Windows® 95 Service Release 2, Windows NT 4.0, Windows® 98, Windows® Millennium Edition, Windows® 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional, Windows® XP 64-Bit Edition, or the Windows Server 2003 family.

Before you deploy or configure client software assess your organizational needs, determine which applications and services your internal clients require, and assess how you plan to publish servers. Finally, map these needs to the client types supported by ISA Server.

Use Table 5.2 to determine which clients to deploy on your network.

Table 5.2   Determining Which Clients to Deploy

Goal Client Reason

Improve the performance of Web requests for internal clients.

Combine user-level and content controls to Web access.

Web Proxy

Web Proxy clients do not require any software to be installed but does require specific configuration.

Avoid deploying client software or configuring client computers.

SecureNAT

SecureNAT clients do not require any software or specific configuration.

Improve Web performance in an environment with non-Microsoft operating systems.

SecureNAT

SecureNAT client requests pass transparently to the ISA Server firewall service and then to the caching service.

Publish servers that are located on your internal network.

SecureNAT

You can publish Internal servers as SecureNAT clients, which eliminates the need for creating special configuration settings on the publishing server.

Allow Internet access only for authenticated users.

Firewall or Web Proxy

You can configure user-based access policy rules for firewall clients. There is also an option to require authentication with Web Proxy clients.