LYNX-DEV What's "realm"

[Brian Tillman, x8425]

I've search the Web (using Lynx, of course) and I can't seem to find what the 
concept of "realm" actually means.  I did find some handwaving in the Purveyor 
documentation, and a theoretical discussion of some aspects of it in a "Session 
Identification URI" document, but no explanation of what it really does, how to 
control it and how to set it up in a proxy server.

The reason I ask is that the person who takes care of the proxy server is not 
familiar enough yet to know what it's for and our proxy server is inserting a 
prompt asking for the authentication in the region of the Lynx status line 
devoted to displaying the realm.  I'd like to be able to tell the person how to 
adjust the server to do the prompting correctly.
--
 Brian Tillman                   Internet: tillman_brian at si.com
 Smiths Industries, Inc.                   tillman at swdev.si.com
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        This opinion doesn't represent that of my company
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