Even with VPN, certain MBL/WHOI Library Services require proxy

To access many of the MBL/WHOI Library 'Full Text' journals and databases, which are contracted from companies whose Web addresses are outside of the WHOI/MBL address range (128.128.*), you will need to configure a proxy server in your browser.

In general, the VPN service will allow your home computer access to the restricted, internal-only services that you normally access from your WHOI office. There are, however, some subtleties, which the following explanation may help elucidate.

WHOI uses a 'split-tunnel' for VPN connections, allowing traffic destined for the .whoi.edu domain to tunnel through our Cisco VPN concentrator and traffic intended for other Internet hosts to tunnel through your home ISP's routers. Therefore when browsing to non-WHOI hosts, your home computer will be using the IP address assigned to it by your DSL or Cable ISP. We use this configuration feature so that your home connections to Google, for example, don't have to come into WHOI, take a hairpin turn and travel back out through our Internet connection - you have a more direct link via your ISP's routes. Most of the journals and databases contracted by the Library are located outside of WHOI address space, at '.com' addresses. Therefore, traffic destined for these nodes does not tunnel through our VPN concentrator and is perceived by those remote sites as coming from your ISP, not from within WHOI. The best way to deal with this situation is to use the proxy server established at MBL for your use while working at home.