Proxy-Authenticate
A challenge that indicates the authentication scheme(s) that should be used to gain access to a resource behind a proxy server.
Fastly reads this header from responses and writes it into responses. It is defined by an external standard.
The Proxy-Authenticate
header field consists of at least one challenge that indicates the authentication scheme(s) and parameters applicable to the proxy for this effective request URI (Section 5.5 of RFC7230). A proxy MUST send at least one Proxy-Authenticate
header field in each 407 (Proxy Authentication Required)
response that it generates.
Unlike WWW-Authenticate
, the Proxy-Authenticate
header field applies only to the next outbound client on the response chain. This is because only the client that chose a given proxy is likely to have the credentials necessary for authentication. However, when multiple proxies are used within the same administrative domain, such as office and regional caching proxies within a large corporate network, it is common for credentials to be generated by the user agent and passed through the hierarchy until consumed. Hence, in such a configuration, it will appear as if Proxy-Authenticate is being forwarded because each proxy will send the same challenge set.