Supress Windows Authentication Popup When Accessing Local Machine Info

Introduction

As a mechanism for web security, a windows popup requesting authentication is generated when one accesses certain system information, such as the local machine name.  In a controlled/captive environment, this is unnecessary and suppressing it will improve the user experience - or, as we have learned when things are changed - avert a short-term panic.

Using the Code

This is a tip - saving those interested a lot of browsing until they find a simple answer that works across all platforms. The information was gotten from http://sso.cisco.com/autho/msgs/disable_IWA.htm, where there are examples for FireFox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer. I'll describe, step-by-step, how this was done for Firefox.

In my case, I needed to enable all references to an internal network server, we'll call it 12.34.55.78. You can refine this to create more restricted trusted access. This is a step-by-step example, slightly modifying the procedure given:

1. Open FireFox
2. Url = about:config
3. network.automatic-ntlm-auth.trusted-uris in search bar
4. right-click -> Modify-> 12.34.56.78
5. network.negotiate-auth.trusted-uris into search bar
6. right-click -> Modify-> 12.34.56.78
7. Close all instances of Firefox to "lock"

That does it.

Points of Interest

This is an internally accessible server on our network - no outside contact at all - so bypassing the authorization is reasonable for what amounts to already authorized users. By using the network address, I enabled all content from that address in a single stroke.

Interestingly, had I not found this, all the user needed do is press OK on the authentication window when it showed and all would be well - not that helpful for security, anyway.