Web Guidelines: MIT Libraries

Restricting pages to MIT

There is more than one way to restrict your pages to particular audiences.

Method 1 - MIT certificates

Secure access to content over https (encrypted web connection) is available, allowing web publishers to restrict access to specific users or groups.

How to do it: Follow instructions on this page: Protecting Content.

Advantages:

• very secure
• you can restrict to specific groups within MIT, by email list, such as "all-lib@mit.edu"

Disadvantages:

• requires MIT certificates every time, even ON campus

When to use:

• Good for pages that are private, confidential, and should be viewed only by a particular group within MIT.

Method 2 - Libraries' proxy server

The web manager can work with you to set up a page via our proxy server.

How to do it: Contact the web manager, who will implement the following steps:

• our proxy string must be appended to the URL: http://libproxy.mit.edu/login?url=
• page must be entered into proxy configuration files
• shortcut URL must be assigned by web manager
• all links to the page MUST use the shortcut URL

Advantages:

• if you are ON campus, it lets you right in without asking for certificates
• if you are an MIT certificate holder who is off-campus, you can access the page with your certificates (allowing us to make MIT-only resources available from off-campus)

Disadvantages:

• less secure, if someone knows the actual URL they can access the page (not true of our licensed e-journals and databases, since they are protected by the vendor)
• less specific, can't set up access for a particular group within MIT, it's available to any MIT certificate holder

When to use:

• Good for our request forms, such as ILB, where you want people on public machines in the library to be able to access them without being asked for their certificate.
• Use for pages that are not confidential or private, but are for the purpose of providing service to MIT users only.