Easyproxy
EZproxy: Access and authentication software | OCLC
EZproxy allows libraries to deliver e-resources to users simply and securely no matter where or when they’re searching. EZproxy was built to advance the crucial role libraries play in protecting patron privacy and influencing learning outcomes, making it a trusted e-resource access and authentication solution. Thousands of libraries in over 100 countries use EZproxy to facilitate secure, reliable access to e-resources.
Make more informed, data-driven decisions. EZproxy Analytics provides advanced analytics capabilities to users of EZproxy hosted for an additional subscription. It’s a turnkey service that extracts, enriches, and transforms complex data into simple visual dashboards, making it easy to better understand and communicate e-resource ROI.
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Connect your users to library resources with a single sign-on
EZproxy provides your users with continuous access to e-resources without the hassle of remembering multiple passwords and usernames.
Simplify e-resource access
EZproxy remotely connects your users to the e-resources they need for school and research using their existing single sign-on credentials. EZproxy connects on their behalf with an authorized IP address so content providers permit access. You can configure it to grant access by groups to meet licensing needs and use it to support diverse curriculum since it connects to most content providers.
Make more informed decisions
EZproxy logs rich insights like who’s using what library resources, when, and from where, and some of these insights are included in monthly usage reports. You can get a more complete and meaningful view of e-resource impact with EZproxy Analytics, a turnkey service that manages, enriches, and visualizes your usage data. Its advanced analytics capabilities will inform collection management decisions.
Maintain privacy and security
EZproxy protects the identity of your users and puts you in control of their workflows to determine if and with whom any user data is shared. EZproxy also uses a robust and customizable set of security rules to detect and disable compromised single sign-on credentials before they can be used to exploit any systems or data, protecting your users and community from security threats.
Meet IT system requirements
EZproxy connects to most identity management systems and supports many different authentication schemes. EZproxy is also set up and managed by OCLC so IT teams can focus on other projects. We provide database stanza management, software and hardware management, SSL certificate management, and more. EZproxy’s flexible service options meet both library and IT needs.
Find out more about EZproxy and EZproxy Analytics
Member stories
“EZproxy hosted is working very well for our library. It’s invisible; no trouble at all. ”
Irene E. McDermott Reference Librarian and Systems Manager, Crowell Public Library, City of San Marino, California
EZproxy allows your library to deliver e-content to users simply and securely no matter where or when they’re searching. EZproxy facilitates a single sign-on to e-content using your institution’s preferred authentication method, such as SAML or LDAP, while protecting user privacy and keeping usage data under library control.
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03 November 2021
A 30-minute demonstration of EZproxy Analytics
09 December 2021
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EZproxy – Wikipedia
EZproxy is a web proxy server used by libraries to give access from outside the library’s computer network to restricted-access websites that authenticate users by IP address. This allows library patrons at home or elsewhere to log in through their library’s EZproxy server and gain access to resources to which their library subscribes, such as bibliographic databases.
The software was originally written by Chris Zagar in 1999 who founded Useful Utilities LLC to support it. OCLC announced in January 2008 that it had acquired the product and was hiring Zagar as a full-time consultant for a year. [1] Zagar is a librarian who serves as a systems librarian at the Estrella Mountain Community College, a part of the Maricopa Community Colleges in Arizona. He won the 2006 LITA/Brett Butler Entrepreneurship Award for his work with EZproxy. [2]
EZproxy is a URL rewriting program, [3] which works by dynamically altering the URLs within the web pages provided by the database vendor. The server names within the URLs of these web pages are changed to reflect the EZproxy server instead, causing users to return to the EZproxy server as they access links on these web pages. “[4] Previous proxy solutions were complex and difficult to maintain, and when EZproxy was created, authentication systems like Shibboleth were still far in the future. [2]
The software is sometimes confused with generic proxy server software designed to control web access. It is sometimes referred to as a “proxy referral” server to distinguish it.
The software has been purchased by more than 2, 500 institutions in over 60 countries. [5]
References[edit]
^ “OCLC acquires EZproxy authentication and access software”. Retrieved 17 April 2018.
^ a b [1] Archived 2008-01-24 at the Wayback Machine
^ “Home”. 27 January 2017. Retrieved 17 April 2018.
^ “EZproxy”. Retrieved 17 April 2018.
External links[edit]
EZproxy authentication and access software, official webpages at OCLC
The Unofficial EZproxy Self-Support Wiki, The State University of New York at Potsdam
customizable log file analysis and statistics tool for universities, customizable log file analysis and statistics tool for universities
Introduction to database stanza directives – OCLC Support
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Overview
Every resource that your users access remotely using EZproxy must be configured in the file. This file contains a listing of the databases that you subscribe to with instructions for EZproxy about what resources within those databases users are allowed to access. The instructions are the directives, and when combined, these directives form database stanzas. When your users attempt to access a database, after they have been authenticated, EZproxy reads your institution’s list of resources and directives in the file and determines whether or not the resource the user is trying to access is available to your users, and either grants access (by rewriting the URL into a proxied URL) or denies access.
The following document will provide an overview of basic EZproxy database stanza construction and how EZproxy reads those database stanzas. This will help you to better understand how to create your own basic stanzas and when an existing stanza in your will provide access to a newly licensed resource.
Basic stanza construction
Basic EZproxy database stanzas consist of up to six directive statements. While many additional directives and configurations can be used, and are necessary in some cases, the basic database stanza is often all that is needed to provide access to resources. It also serves as a starting point to examine how EZproxy reads and processes information when a user clicks on the resource URLs you have listed on your website.
The basic directives used in stanza construction are as follows:
Title
URL
Host
HostJavascript
Domain
DomainJavascript
Not all basic database stanzas will contain all of these directives, but they will contain at minimum the first two, title and URL, and most will be followed by at least one Host/HostJavascript and one Domain/DomainJavascript.
Directive definitions
Database stanzas can be made up of multiple directives, but most database stanzas are constructed using some combination of six basic directives: Title, URL, Host, HostJavascript, Domain, and/or DomainJavascript. The following table provides definitions for these directives, examples of their use, and the result of entering that example as part of a file.
Directive
What it does
Example
Any entry following the title directive will appear in the alphabetical list of resources on your default test page. The title has no bearing on how EZproxy handles a given database. It is there just for your reference to help identify the given database.
If your file has the following line
Title Science Database
Science Database would appear on your admin /menu (LINK) page, with a hyperlink to the proxied webpage specified in the URL line following the title.
The first directive EZproxy reads to determine whether the URL a user is trying to access matches any of the databases in the file. If the URL a user is trying to access matches a URL in the file, proxied access is granted.
A user who clicks on a link with the starting point URL would be allowed to access the Science Database because the URLs match.
&
HostJavascript (HJ)
The next directives EZproxy reads to determine whether the URL a user is trying to access matches any of the databases in the file. If the URL a user is trying to access matches a Host or a HostJavascript in the file, proxied access is granted.
If your file has either of the following lines
OR
HJ
A user who clicks on a link with the starting point URL would be allowed to access the Physics resource at the Science Database because the URL matches the Host directive.
DomainJavascript (DJ)
After a user has accessed a proxied database, additional links within that site may be encountered. When a user clicks on a link within a proxied site, EZproxy reads for the first Domain or DomainJavascript statement that matches that URL. If the URL matches a domain statement in the file, proxied access is granted. If the DJ directive is used, any javascript in that URL will be rewritten as well. The Domain directive will not rewrite javascript encountered in the URL.
DJ
A user within a proxied site who clicked on a link with the URL would be allowed to access the Physics resource at the Science Database because the URL matches the domain directive. This domain statement would also allow the user to access the Astronomy resource with the following URL. Even though the URLs for the Physics and Astronomy resources are different, because they end with the domain, the domain statement above will ensure that the user is granted access to both these, and any other resource with a URL ending in
URL, Host & HostJavascript
Standard port URLs
Every EZproxy transaction begins with a Starting Point URL. In one of the two following forms, depending on whether your instance of EZproxy is standalone or hosted.
Standalone:
Hosted:
In both of these examples, the user is trying to use EZproxy to reach the content provider Science Database located at
When processing this starting point URL, EZproxy will take the origin of the request (which consists of the origin URL, and the standard port, :80) and try to find a URL, Host, or HostJavascript (HJ) directive in the file with an identical origin. For a more detailed discussion of the origin and other components of URLs, please see Understanding URLs. Neither Domain nor DomainJavascript directives will be read in the file when EZproxy begins processing this starting point URL. EZproxy only reads the URL, Host, and HostJavascript directives when searching for a match to the starting point URL.
Any of the following directives in would be considered a match to the starting point URL above since they have the same origin () as the database URL above.
URL URL URL Host Host HJ HJ Non-default and secure port URLs
Non-default URLs
The previous examples all assume that the destination URLs in the Starting Point URL use the default scheme and the default port 80. If a destination URL uses the secure scheme with its 443 port or a non-default port, then it will only match a URL, Host, or HostJavascript (HJ) line that includes port information.
For example, the following Starting Point URL,
would not match any of the previous examples because it contains the port number 8080, not the default port 80. This Starting Point URL, however, would match any of the following directive lines, which all have the origin, which matches the origin of the destination URL in the Starting Point URL..
URL URL URL Host Host HJ HJ
Secure port URLs
Likewise, the starting point URL that follows would not be a match with any of the previous URL, Host, or HJ statements because it contains the scheme, which points the URL to a different default port, 443. So, the following starting point URL,
would require a separate URL, Host, or HJ statement for EZproxy to read this starting point URL as a match and allow proxied access. Any of the following directive lines, which all have the origin of the destination URL, would be matches for this secure port URL:
URL URL URL Host HJ
Domain & DomainJavascript
Once a user begins using a site through EZproxy, additional links may be encountered, and EZproxy must read the file to determine whether or not to proxy these links and allow the user to continue on to these resources while still proxied. EZproxy will attempt to match the newly encountered URL against URL, Host, and HJ statements, but it will also consider the Domain and DomainJavascript (DJ) directives at this time.
When attempting to match the Domain or DJ lines, EZproxy ignores the scheme ( and) and port. Instead, EZproxy considers a URL to match a Domain or DJ directive if the URL matches the domain name or ends in the domain name. For instance, a user might click on the following URL while using the proxied site
The origin of this URL () would not match any of the previous URL, Host, or HostJavascript directives given in the previous tab. However it would match the following Domain or DJ directives:
Domain DJ
In each of these examples, the destination URL either matches the specified domain exactly, or ends with a period followed by the given domain.
While any of these Domain or DJ directive lines would provide your users with access to the given destination URL, the first Domain and first DJ lines are the recommended construction for these directives because they would match multiple destination URLs encountered on a proxied site. Any URL encountered on the proxied site that ended with would be rewritten if a user clicked on it. For example, the statements
and
would be domain matches for any of the following URLs
because all of these URLs end with, but all the other Domain and DJ lines would only match
Examples
Stanza
Result
Title Science Databases
URL Domain
The Title Science Databases will appear on your default test page
Users will be able to access the URL from a starting point URL through the proxy server; it will be rewritten with your proxy prefix in front of it as
Once on the site Science Databases, this Domain directive will allow users to access the resources located at as well as, and both will be rewritten with the proxy prefix or
Title Social Science Database
URL Host Host HJ Domain
The Title Social Science Database will appear on your default test page
Users will be able to access the URL from a starting point URL through the proxy server.
Users will also be able to access the URLs:
because they have been included as Host or HostJavascript statements. When rewritten with proxy access, only the URL will be rewritten for the two following the Host statement. When rewritten with proxy access, the JavaScript for the URL following the HostJavascript statement will also be rewritten.
Once at the proxied site Social Science Database, the Domain and DomainJavascript statements allow users to access any URL link that ends with The DomainJavascript statement will cause the JavaScript at that link will also be rewritten. This means users can access additional resources located at links like and. However, because follows a Domain statement, and this statement is listed first, the first URL will be rewritten, but JavaScript at the URL will not be rewritten. Because follows a DJ statement, the second URL will be rewritten, and so will the JavaScript at the URL.
Frequently Asked Questions about easyproxy
What is an EZproxy link?
EZproxy is a web proxy server used by libraries to give access from outside the library’s computer network to restricted-access websites that authenticate users by IP address. … It is sometimes referred to as a “proxy referral” server to distinguish it.
What is an EZproxy stanza?
Basic EZproxy database stanzas consist of up to six directive statements. While many additional directives and configurations can be used, and are necessary in some cases, the basic database stanza is often all that is needed to provide access to resources.Sep 9, 2021
Who owns EZproxy?
Abstract: OCLC has acquired EZproxy from Useful Utilities, a one-person company based in Peoria, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. The acquisition of this product gives OCLC control of an important piece of the infrastructure that connects individual libraries to the content and services on the Web.Mar 25, 2008
