Importance

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Abstract

A credential caching proxy server that handles credential caching for a set of wireless client devices is disclosed. The credential caching proxy server handles most credential transactions for wireless client devices that wish to access resources within a protected realm where the protected realm requires credentials. In one embodiment, the credential caching proxy server intercepts and caches a wireless client's credentials when a credential is first sent from the wireless user agent to a protected server. The cached credential will then be used for all requests to resources within the same protected realm. Thus, after first sending a first credential for accessing the resource in a particular realm, the wireless user agent does not need to attach the credential for all the subsequent requests for any other resources belong to the same realm. In an alternate embodiment, the proxy server sends a special request to the wireless client device requesting a credential for a particular resource. The special request may take the form of a simple preformatted display page such that a 'dumb terminal' wireless client device can be used to communicate with protected Internet resources even though the 'dumb' wireless client device has no concept of authentication and authorization.

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First Claim