making a classic proxy transparent

Our department sets up new computers for clients. We open the box,
install software, apply updates, update virus software, etc. Our
department lan uses a proxy server, which is off-limits to us, so we
are not allowed to change it at all. Our problem is that we much
manually enter the proxy into each XP machine, and sometimes we forget
to take it out. Many of these computers are going to other networks,
or homes, and we are taking a lot of calls from angry clients about
removing the proxy.

On our network, these new machines are assigned an IP address by the
DHCP server. We have a switch in our department to which we attach
all these new computers. Aside from manually entering the proxy url
and port into each new machine, we don't change the out of box
configurations in any permanent way. The problem is when we forget to
remove the proxy, we are changing it in a way that is problematic for
our customers.

Is there a way to put a windows 2000 server machine or a linux machine
between our switch and the lan connecton that will allow us to skip
the step of entering the proxy url? To put it another way, can we
make the proxy server transparent? I've heard of transparent
-Jeff
proxying, could it be used? Would a machine forwarding port 80 to the
port on the proxy server work? Can a machine be made to autoconfigure
the clients via wpad? Any help would be appreciated.
-Jeff

Jeff wrote:
......
> Is there a way to put a windows 2000 server machine or a linux machine
> between our switch and the lan connecton that will allow us to skip
> the step of entering the proxy url? To put it another way, can we
> make the proxy server transparent? I've heard of transparent
> -Jeff
> proxying, could it be used? Would a machine forwarding port 80 to the
> port on the proxy server work? Can a machine be made to autoconfigure
> the clients via wpad? Any help would be appreciated.

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/TransparentProxy.html
Additionally, you can set dns server, gateway, netbios name (WINS) server
and ntp server by dhcp, enabling you to use NATted LAN boxen to connect to
the inet without any modification "out of the box" as they are configured
to use dhcp by default.
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