Java Sockets and Firewalls

["Kirkilis, John" <KirkilJ () netsolve net>]

I'm trying to understand the whole issue about Java applets and
Firewalls and have a few questions. If you received this email, I found
your email address while doing searches on the subject. I haven't found
direct answers to my specific questions, so I'm trying to get some
confirmation on what I've been able to determine thus far. If you can
help, I'd sure appreciate it. I'm in a bind right now.

*       Is the SOCKS proxy client in Navigator or IE used by the JVM to
allow any Java applet to open a socket through a firewall .... or ...
does the applet itself have to establish itself as a SOCKS client?

*       Does the destination server need to have SOCKS support or is
just the client and proxy server sufficient?

*       If the Java applet is loaded from an SSL-secured web page are
all communications via Java socket calls also protected by this sleeve
... or ... must the java applet itself establish itself as an SSL client
and use java security APIs.

*       If a java applet is retrieved through a proxy server, does the
browser consider it downloaded from the proxy or the actual server? Are
there any problems given the network security sandbox and issues such as
proxy servers or routers which perform network address translation?

*       Must the server which is serving up the applet have reverse DNS
capability over the internet to conform to the sandbox restrictions? I
recall some mention of this a while back.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.


---------------------------------------------
John Kirkilis - Product Development
NetSolve, Inc. (512) 795-3056
johnk () netsolve com

"Entropy - it isn't what it used to be."