Redirect and changing the URL that is returned to the client.

forgot to paste the header irule that I referenced. when HTTP_REQUEST { if { [HTTP::header host] eq "www.abc.com" } { HTTP::header replace Host "www.xyz.com" } }

An HTTP::redirect is going to send a physical 302 redirect response back to client, causing the browser address bar to change. To make the URL transparent, you have to do a few things:

1. On HTTP requests, you need to change the Host header.

2. On HTTP responses, if the server is sending a redirect of its own, you want to make sure the redirect is mapped to your external URL.

3. On HTTP responses, you also want to make sure any internal document references (images, CSS, JS, etc.) are not mapping to the internal URL.

Keep in mind also that access to the internal URL MUST COME THROUGH the external URL. You cannot have the client go to some other resource that is not local, without changing the address bar. So assuming the server is behind your BIG-IP, this is what a minimalist version of that iRule might look like:

when HTTP_REQUEST {
     Remove the Accept-Encoding header from requests so that the server does not compress responses
    HTTP::header remove Accept-Encoding

     Disable the STREAM profile for request traffic
    STREAM::disable

     replace the Host header
    HTTP::header replace Host "www.xyz.com"
}
when HTTP_RESPONSE {
     Look for and replace redirects from the server
    if { [HTTP::header exists Location] } {
        HTTP::header replace Location [string map {"www.xyz.com" "www.abc.com"} [HTTP::header Location]]
    }

     For any text-based response enable a STREAM mapping to replace specific values
     To use this, enable an empty STREAM profile to the virtual server
    if { [HTTP::header Content-Type] contains "text" } {
        STREAM::expression {@www.xyz.com@www.abc.com@}
        STREAM::enable
    }
}

Again, this is a minimalist approach, and may not completely cover everything depending on how the application functions or if you also need to remap URIs. Optionally, you can use the ProxyPass iRule on 11.3 systems and older, and the new Policy functions in 11.4 and newer.

Do you have an example or post documentation to the new policy that will mask the url?

 

Thanks,

 

Wallace