Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol
Computer protocol
The Web Proxy Auto-Discovery (WPAD) Protocol is a method used by clients to locate the URL of a configuration file using DHCP and/or DNS discovery methods. Once detection and download of the configuration file is complete, it can be executed to determine the proxy for a specified URL.
History
The WPAD protocol only outlines the mechanism for discovering the location of this file, but the most commonly deployed configuration file format is the proxy auto-config format originally designed by Netscape in 1996 for Netscape Navigator 2.0.
The WPAD protocol was drafted by a consortium of companies including Inktomi Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, RealNetworks, Inc., and Sun Microsystems, Inc. (now Oracle Corp.). WPAD is documented in an INTERNET-DRAFT which expired in December 1999. However, WPAD is still supported by all major browsers. WPAD was first included with Internet Explorer 5.0.
Context
In order for all browsers in an organization to be supplied the same proxy policy, without configuring each browser manually, both the below technologies are required:
Proxy auto-config (PAC) standard: create and publish one central proxy configuration file. Details are discussed in a separate article.
Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol (WPAD) standard: ensure that an organization's browsers will find this file without manual configuration.
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This entry incorporates text from “Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.