Web Agent Guides › Web Agent Configuration Guide › Authenticate Users with Forms › Use Credential Collectors for Authentication and Single Sign-On › Configure Credential Collectors in a Mixed Environment › Use FCCs and NTCs in a Mixed Environment

Use FCCs and NTCs in a Mixed Environment

To process requests, the FCC and NTC rely on the user credentials and the name of the Web Agent that is protecting the requested resource. However, 4.x Web Agents and third party Agents who may post to the FCC and NTC do not pass the Agent name on the URL they send.

The following configuration options help FCCs and NTCs to operate with 4.x Web Agents:

• Use Compatibility Mode—to enable a r5.x, r6.x, or r12.0 SP2 FCC/NTC to serve up forms for resources protected by 4.x Web Agents or third party applications, enable the FCCCompatMode parameter. Traditional Web Agents have the FCCCompatMode parameter is enabled by default; framework Agents have the FCCCompatMode parameter is disabled by default.

  Enabling this parameter makes a r5.x, r6.x, or r12.0 SP2 Agent handle forms and NTLM credential collection like a 4.x Agent, which means that a form or NTLM credential cookie is written to a user's browser and the user is redirected back to the Agent before she can log in at the Policy Server. This permits the Web Agents to interoperate.

  When the value of the FCCCompatMode parameter is set to no, compatibility withFCCCompatMode 4.x Agents is disabled. In an exclusively r5.x, r6.x, or r12.0 SP2 environment, set the value of the parameter to no.

  Important! Setting this parameter to no removes support for version 4.x of the Netscape browser.

• Specify Agent name mappings—FCC only: If you disable backward compatibility (by setting the value of the FCCCompatMode parameter to no), map the AgentName parameter to the name and IP address of each host using that FCC for its protected resources. Set up these mappings in the FCC's Agent configuration file or its Agent Configuration Object on the Policy Server.

  Example mappings:

  myagent, 123.1.12.1

  myagent, www.sitea.com

• Use Host Names as Agent Names—FCC only: If the first two options in the algorithm are not optimal, you can set the value of the AgentNamesAreFQHostNames parameter to yes. This tells the FCC to use the fully qualified host name in the target URL as the Agent name. For example, if the URL string includes:

  url?A=1&Target=http://www.nete.com/index.html

  The www.nete.com portion of the Target string serves as the Agent name.

  By default, this parameter is set to no. Consequently, the value of the DefaultAgentName parameter is used as the Agent name.

The following tables list guidelines for configuring r5.x, r6.x, or r12.0 SP2 and 4.x FCCs and NTCs, and describes how each behaves in a mixed environment:

Notes:

• Beginning with Web Agent 5.0, NTLM credential collectors can redirect users from non-IIS Web Servers to IIS Web Servers.
• For framework Web Agents, refer only to the instructions where FCC compatibility mode is disabled.

Note: For more information about SSL Authentication Schemes, see the Policy Server documentation.