Redirecting the server's bookmarked url to HTTPS sub-domain's url

[Former Member]

Hello Experts,

We have XIR3.1 SP4 and Tomcat 5.5 on one standalone server.

We have created a separate domain name for our BusinessObjects server, for example, User's log on to businessobjects.company.org instead of BOservername. And we have created redirect files to direct any request coming to servername to businessobjects.company.org. Now all this is working fine without the SSL's.

I recently implemented SSL. And I'm able to log in to https://businessobjects.company.org even if I enter BOservername, or businessobjects.company.org in the url bar and the request is getting routed to https://businessobjects.company.org. This seems to be working fine if I (or the user) is entering the domain name or the server name in the url bar.

But if there are link's for BOservername or http://businessobjects.company.org that are book marked on the machine and I (or the user) selects this link, then it is taking me to the HTTP url and not the HTTPS url.

I followed couple of blogs and added the below code to the web.xml file in tomcat\conf folder

<security-constraint>

<web-resource-collection>

<web-resource-name> Protected Context </web-resource-name>

<url-pattern>/*/</url-pattern>

</web-resource-collection>

<!-- auth-constraint goes here if you requre authentication -->

<user-data-constraint>

<transport-guarantee>CONFIDENTIAL</transport-guarantee>

</user-data-constraint>

</security-constraint> 

When I add the above code, then HTTPS is getting added to all the urls on the server.  And the bookmark that has http://businessobjects.company.org is switcing the url to https, but the bookmark for http://boservername/ is not getting routed to https://businessobjects.company.org.

Is there anyway that I can route the requests from the book marked boservername to businessobjects.company.org url?

Thanks in advance

[Former Member]

Hi Mr Izak,

From what I understand, it's more a client side issue.

What happens when you modify your temporary file settings ?

=> try to set it agressivly from never or automatically to Everytime I visit the web page.

Bookmark cache is kind of annoying, I mean... if set on never, it may still display your homepage while yout tomcat stopped.

=> Please also try to purge your browsing history.

One other reason could have been that you are using a proxy that is caching the page for you but if it only happens on bookmarks I guess it's more client cache related.

Regards,

Matthieu

[Former Member]

Hi Matthieu,

This would be helpful for browser cache files, not bookmarks. You're thinking of two different types of things. What Mr. Izak is talking about is when folks enter in a URL, into their browser, and click on 'Bookmark' (Varies by browser), how can he re-direct that traffic to the appropriate URL. Thus, needing some form of proxy, in front of the Tomcat server, needs to occur.

Please let me know if you have any questions/concerns over this. Thanks in advance,

-Victor

[Former Member]

Hello Victor,

Mr Izak said :

"When I add the above code, then HTTPS is getting added to all the urls on the server.  And the bookmark that has http://businessobjects.company.org is switcing the url to https, but the bookmark for http://boservername/ is not getting routed to https://businessobjects.company.org."

Under certains conditions you can have your web site down and have a bookmark that still display the usual web page because it will use locally stored pages. You can have a try by setting the refresh stored pages to never on internet explorer for example.

So before investigating on the tomcat server, implementing a proxy or whatever, Mr Izak should at least check that his bookmark linking to http://boservername/ is not using stored web page in his cache. Otherwhise you may have a very hard time debugging your server redirection since your browser does not even ask something to your server.

Regards,

Matthieu

[Former Member]

Hi Matthieu,

Correct. However, you won't be able to redirect the hostname to a URL without some form of proxy server. If Mr Izak stated that even the http://businessobjects.company.org wasn't redirecting to HTTPS, then I would second your post of clearing out the cache files. However, considering it is working, and what he's attempting to do is have the server name itself redirect to a URL, that would require a proxy server in order to do that.

To add more to this, being of security minded, the network folks should, realistically, block any traffic attempting to communicate directly with the server itself. All traffic should be routed through the URL itself, this will further increase security measures. What I use is Apache web servers 'mod_rewrite' tool that checks for a cached cookie. If it's not there, it blocks any and all traffic.

Please let me know if you have any questions/concerns over this. Thanks in advance,

-Victor

[Former Member]

Hi Matthieu,

Nothing changes when I apply the History Settings....I tried different options, same results.

I'm able to re-direct the request to our desired url only when the user types the url or hostname in the URL bar or use our link...But not when the url is book marked on their machine

[Former Member]

Hi Mr. Izak,

Firstly, I don't see why folks don't just change their bookmark from the server name to the URL. I don't think any person should have the server name bookmarked, but that's just my opinion.

However, what you will need to do is setup a rewrite rule, in order to redirect the traffic to the appropriate URL. Tomcat isn't sufficient enough, out of the box, to do this. There is, however, an add-on, http://tuckey.org/urlrewrite/, that can be used to redirect the traffic within Tomcat.

My suggestion would be to implement an Apache or IIS web server in front of the Tomcat, to perform this redirect. Not only that, you'll get the benefits of off-loading some of the work onto Apache, and let Tomcat perform the necessary work it needs to do, rather than making Tomcat do all of the work.

For more information on Apache web server redirect, go here: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/trunk/rewrite/remapping.html

For more information on IIS web server redirect, go here: http://www.trainsignal.com/blog/iis7-redirect-windows-server-2008

Hopefully this answers your question, let me know if it doesn't. Thanks in advance,

-Victor

[Former Member]

Hi Victor, thanks for the help...

Let me try the solutions and see if it works..

Thanks again