Technical Bulletin

January 21, 2015

What is happening?


This is a follow-up to a bulletin issued last October where we alerted our customers to potential problems accessing TestNav if they planned to use iPads with a global proxy security setting. At that time, we recommended customers contact Pearson Support for hands-on assistance in determining the best solution. Pearson has filed a bug with Apple (reference #14656887).

This bulletin provides a workaround to customers previously unable to use TestNav 8 on iPad with a global proxy. Detailed below, this procedure will enable students in organizations using this iPad setup to successfully log in to their online test sessions.

What does this mean?

Customers using iPads with MDM software and a global proxy for web security will need to implement the procedure below in order to sign in to TestNav 8.  This procedure puts a proxy auto-config (PAC) file in place to handle browser requests. The PAC file will direct requests to access the TestNav 8 URL through your proxy server.

Administrators must then download the attached proxy auto-config (PAC) file and deploy the file to the web server, following the instructions below. Once the file is deployed, set your MDM software to use the PAC file by setting the MDM software to "Auto" proxy, rather than "Manual," and entering the URL that links to the PAC file.

What do I need to do (and how do I do it)?

  1. Download the proxy.pac file.

  2. Define the Multi-Purpose Internet Mail Extension (MIME) type for the PAC file via the server config file to tell the web server what the PAC file is.

    Below are instructions for the most widely used web servers. For other servers, contact Pearson Support.

    Apache Web Server:

    1. Go to the directory on your web server where your website is located.

    2. Create a new text file called ".htaccess". This file defines how the server handles files inside of this directory.

    3. Add a MIME type to the ".htaccess" file.

    4. Open the ".htaccess" file using a text editor, and add the following line: 
      application/x-ns-proxy-autoconfig.

    IIS Web Server:

    1. Select your sites domain.

    2. Select HTTP headers tabs, and click on MIME types.

    3. Click New.

    4. Enter the following information:

      1. Extension: .pac

      2. MIME Type: application/x-ns-proxy-autoconfig

    5. Click Ok.

  3. Feed the URL that has the PAC file to the MDM software for the iPad using the following: 

    proxy.pac

    function FindProxyForURL(url, host) {
var lhost = host.toLowerCase();
host = lhost;
	if ((host == "localhost") ||(shExpMatch(host, "localhost.*")) ||
		(host == "127.0.0.1")) {
		return "DIRECT";
}
	return "PROXY 192.xx.xx.xxx:8080";
}
    JS

    If you have a URL to your proxy, make sure that the return statement looks like: "PROXY www.example.com:8080" 

    The keyword "PROXY" must appear as in the return example:

    "PROXY  192.xx.xx.xxx:8080"


Related Information

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