[users@httpd] Reverse proxy to Websphere

[Jorge Andres Osorio <jv...@gmail.com>]

Hi people:

I'm having issues with and old Apache 2.0.52 running as a reverse
proxy to a Websphere server. The description of the problem is exactly
the same that someone has with Apache 2.2.x in this URL:

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1577780

Before just trying to upgrade my production reverse proxy server from
the current to the latest Apache version, I would like to know if
there's any kind of problem similar to these that maybe has been
addressed with some specific settings or something like that.

I hope someone can help me or point me to some ideas.

Thanks

P.D: my english isn't very good

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Re: [users@httpd] Reverse proxy to Websphere

[Yehuda Katz <ye...@ymkatz.net>]

On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 12:04 PM, Jorge Andres Osorio
<jv...@gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi people:
>
> I'm having issues with and old Apache 2.0.52 running as a reverse
> proxy to a Websphere server. The description of the problem is exactly
> the same that someone has with Apache 2.2.x in this URL:
>
> http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1577780
>
> Before just trying to upgrade my production reverse proxy server from
> the current to the latest Apache version, I would like to know if
> there's any kind of problem similar to these that maybe has been
> addressed with some specific settings or something like that.
>

First, you should definitely upgrade. At least to 2.2.22 and maybe even to
2.4.1.
Apache 2.0.52 is very old (more that 7 years old) and has security issues.

Which proxy module are you using?
The link you sent mentions mod_proxy_html (which is what is causing the
problem), but you should be able to use mod_proxy_http by itself.
Since you did not provide any information about your current settings, I
can just point you to this article which has full configuration
instructions for using Apache as a proxy to Websphere:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wsmashin/v1r0/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.websphere.sMash.doc/core/zero.core/docs/en/ProxyConfiguration.html

Re: [users@httpd] Reverse proxy to Websphere

[Tom Evans <te...@googlemail.com>]

On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 5:04 PM, Jorge Andres Osorio
<jv...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi people:
>
> I'm having issues with and old Apache 2.0.52 running as a reverse
> proxy to a Websphere server. The description of the problem is exactly
> the same that someone has with Apache 2.2.x in this URL:
>
> http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1577780
>
> Before just trying to upgrade my production reverse proxy server from
> the current to the latest Apache version, I would like to know if
> there's any kind of problem similar to these that maybe has been
> addressed with some specific settings or something like that.
>
> I hope someone can help me or point me to some ideas.
>
> Thanks
>
> P.D: my english isn't very good
>

The key to successful reverse proxying is to ensure that you do not
require the HTML to be rewritten. If the HTML needs to be rewritten,
then Apache must parse the HTML as best it can, and then fixup the
HTML. This is done with a 3rd party module (in 2.0 and 2.2, IIRC it's
included with 2.4) called mod_proxy_html.

If your HTML is not valid, and it cannot parse it, it will do the best
it can, which could involve dropping bits of the HTML it could not
understand.

I don't know anything about Websphere, but in general you don't need
to rewrite the HTML as long as you follow these simple rules:

1) Use relative URLs throughout. '/index.html' not
'http://my-backend-server/index.html'.
2) Host the application at the URI you intend to serve it at. Eg, if
your users access the web-app from 'www.example.com/foo/wibble', the
backend should serve it from 'backend/foo/wibble'.
3) Use ProxyPreserveHost On on the proxy, and on the backends use
UseCanonicalName Off and UseCanonicalPhysicalPort Off (or their
equivalent). This will result in the Host header being passed to the
backend, and used to construct canonical (non relative) URLs.

All of our websites at $JOB are served through reverse proxy, and
follow these rules, and none of them require HTML rewriting.

Cheers

Tom

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