Sun Microsystems Microsoft Corporation RealNetworks, Inc. Inktomi Corporation A mechanism is needed to permit web clients to locate nearby web proxy caches. Current best practice is for end users to hand configure their web client (i.e., browser) with the URL of an 'auto configuration file'. In large environments this presents a formidable support problem. It would be much more manageable for the web client software to automatically learn the configuration information for its web proxy settings. This is typically referred to as a resource discovery problem.