WSM User Guide - WatchGuard Technologies

Configuring the HTTP ProxyConfiguring general settings for HTTP requestsYou use the General Settings fields to configure basic HTTP parameters such as idle time-out and URLlength.Idle TimeoutControls how long the HTTP proxy waits for the web client to make a request for somethingfrom the external web server after it starts a TCP/IP connection or after the earlier request, ifthere was one, for the same connection. If it goes longer than the setting, the HTTP proxy closesthe connection. The default value is 600 seconds.URL LengthSets the maximum length of the path component of a URL. This does not include the “http:\\” orhost name. Control of the URL length can help to prevent buffer overflow attacks.Range requestsRange requests allow a client to request subsets of the bytes in a web resource instead of thefull content. For example, this is useful when you want only some sections of a large Adobe file.You can select a range request to prevent the download of unnecessary pages. If you allowrange requests through the Firebox and download a file infected with a virus whose signature isdivided between two pages, antivirus software will not detect the virus. To allow range requestscan make downloads occur more quickly, but it is not as safe.Send a log message with summary information for each transactionCreates a traffic log message for each transaction. This option creates a large log file, but thisinformation is very important if your firewall is attacked. If you do not select this check box, youdo not see detailed information about HTTP proxied connections in Historical Reports.Setting HTTP request methodsMost browser HTTP requests are in one of two categories: GET and POST operations. Browsers usuallyuse GET operations to download objects such as a graphic, HTML data, or Flash data. More than one GETis usually sent by a client computer for each page, because web pages usually contain many differentelements. The elements are put together to make a page that appears as one page to the end user.User Guide 175