NTLM authentication broken for Mozilla/3.0 User-Agents

Hi Squid developers,

In 1998 a hack was added to HttpMsg::persistent() that disables
persistent connections for HTTP/1.0 User-Agents starting with
"Mozilla/3." and "Netscape/3.".

According to the thread on squid-dev
(http://www.eu.squid-cache.org/mail-archive/squid-dev/199805/0087.html),
this was necessary to make some versions of Netscape browsers work that
had a broken implementation of persistent connections. It was said that
"NS 3.01 is ok. NS 3.02 is bad. NS 3.04 is good." Netscape 4 was ok, too.

I just ran into an issue with a software upgrade tool
(http://www.kcsoftwares.com/index.php?sumo) that uses "Mozilla/3.0
(compatible)" as User-Agent string. According to www.user-agents.com
this string is used by some download managers.

The problem occurs in an environment that uses NTLM authentication. The
upgrade tool supports that, but because Squid forces non-persistent
connections for that User-Agent the authentication dialogue fails. When
setting the User-Agent to Mozilla/4.0 in the binary file of the client,
access is working smoothly.

What do you think about removing the special handling for Mozilla/3 and
Netscape/3 agents from HttpMsg.cc?

How large is the chance that there is still an affected browser in use?
Especially considering that NS 3.02 was affected, but not NS 3.04 IMHO
this is negligible and this legacy code should be removed.

Cheers,

Fabian

Please CC me in your replies, as I am not subscribed to squid-dev.
Received on Tue Jan 11 2011 - 10:37:10 MST