Introduction
All of the options that appear on the Authentication tab on the Pro tool are described below.
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Authentication tab |
Cookie handling
This section enables you to specify how cookies will be managed by the tool. This is especially useful when combined with the Total Validator Firefox/SeaMonkey extension in order to validate websites that use a login session stored in a cookie to protect them.
The first drop down allows you to specify whether you want to accept all cookies, only those that refer to the web server, only session cookies, or ignore all cookies.
Once accepted, cookies may be stored on disk for use in future validation sessions. Use the 'Cache' drop down to specify which types of cookie to store and the 'Send' drop down for which cookies from the cache to use in the next validation. In both cases 'All' includes session cookies.
You can see which cookies are currently in the cache using the 'View Cache' button. A dialog box will appear that allows you to view and delete individual cookies, all cookies for a given URL, or all cookies in the cache.
Web server user/password
Many websites have secure areas that use BASIC, DIGEST or Windows (NTLM) authentication to protect them. In order to validate pages within these areas, enter the required user name and password here.
When connecting to a server using Windows (NTLM) authentication you may need to supply a domain name. In this case enter the domain name and user name separated by a backslash into the user name field. For example 'MYDOMAIN\myuser'.
Note that although the password is masked with asterisks when you type it in, it will still be stored as plain text if you save your settings when you exit the tool. So you may wish to use the interactive option instead.
Proxy server
In order to access the Internet, either to validate pages or to check for updates to this tool, your organisation may require you to go through a Proxy Server. If you cannot validate any pages on the Internet, or otherwise believe that you use a Proxy then you must complete this section, and you may have to contact your IT provider or internal IT support function to find out what settings to use here.
If you have selected the Use System proxy menu option the tool will try to use the operating system settings to determine which proxy server to use. But if this doesn't work, or if you simply wish to override these settings, you may supply the details here. You must supply the host name or IP address of the proxy server, optionally a port number (defaults to 8080, or 1080 for SOCKS) and whether it uses SOCKS.
Many proxy servers require you to authenticate yourself, so fields are available to enter the required user name and password to save typing them in each time. When connecting to a proxy server using Windows (NTLM) authentication you may need to supply a domain name. In this case enter the domain name and user name separated by a backslash into the user name field. For example 'MYDOMAIN\myuser'.
Note that although the password is masked with asterisks when you type it in, it will still be stored as plain text when you save your settings. So you may wish to use the interactive option instead.
Also currently you can only supply one user name/password combination here, so you may need to use the interactive option if you go through more than one authenticating proxy.
Any proxy authentication details you enter using any method will be cached in memory until the tool is restarted to save you having to enter them more than once.
Interactive authentication
Rather than entering authentication details elsewhere on this tab, you can choose to be prompted for them each time they are needed using this option. In this case a dialog box will be displayed with the page you are trying to access and the 'realm' that it resides in, prompting you to enter a valid user/password combination.
Any proxy authentication details you enter will be cached in memory until the tool is restarted to save you having to enter them more than once.