301 Redirect but Adding Original URL and Referrer

Question

Old website will be decommissioned and we want users that would access the old site to be redirected but with the original URL be added and a referrer in the header. Can the original URL can be passed as either a HTTP GET parameter or as a HTTP header, but the referrer should stay “hidden” and be passed in a HTTP header?

We'd like F5 to put the original URL and the referrer into GET parameters.

For example, a user goes to OLD-APP and clicks on help button.

OLD-APP: http://old-app.com/URI/query

help link: http://old-app.com-help/URI/query

F5 intercepts and returns HTTP 301 with the following headers:

Location: https://NEW-APP.com/redirect/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fold-app.com-help%2FURI%2Fquery&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fold-app.com%2FURI%2Fquery

Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, max-age=0

If there is no Referrer header, then F5 can omit referrer or just use an empty value (i.e. referrer=).

We are trying to achieved this via an iRule, I've looked around and found some iRule that could potentially helped but I cant create a specific iRule for this requirements. I'd appreciate your help. TIA.

keesvandenbos · Answer

Hi,Can you test this irule? when HTTP_REQUEST {
set uri [URI::encode [HTTP::uri]]
set host [URI::encode [HTTP::host]]
set referer [URI::encode [ HTTP::header Referer ]] 
	if { [string tolower [HTTP::uri]] starts_with "/uri/"} {
	  HTTP::respond 301 Location "https://NEW-APP.com/redirect/?url=http://$host$uri\_\_referrer=$referer\&amp;[HTTP::query]" Cache-Control "no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, max-age=0"
	  
	}
}Cheers,Kees

keesvandenbos · Answer

Hi,Could you give this a try:when HTTP_REQUEST { 
 HTTP::respond 301 Location "https://NEW-APP.com/redirect/?url=http://[HTTP::host][HTTP::uri]" Referer "http://[HTTP::host][HTTP::uri]"
}Cheers,Kees

f5noob29 · Answer

Thanks Kees.&nbsp;I got it to work but app owner says that they are seeing below,&nbsp;Location: https://https://NEW-APP.com/redirect?url=http://old-app.com-help/URI/URI1/URI2/URI3&nbsp;Instead of this,&nbsp;Location: https://NEW-APP.com/redirect/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fold-app.com%2FURI%2FURI1%2FURI2%2FURI3&nbsp;They also want to have a cache-control headerCache-Control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, max-age=0&nbsp;Also the referrer does not seem to work as F5 doesn't include the referrer in the redirect URL.&nbsp;TIA.

keesvandenbos · Answer

Hi TIA,&nbsp;Can you post the irule here?Cache control header is not a request but a response header. So this can not be included in a redirect.You need separate code in the irule:&nbsp;when HTTP_RESPONSE {
   if { [HTTP::header value Content-Type] contains "application/pdf" } {
      HTTP::header replace Pragma public
      HTTP::header replace Cache-Control public
   }
   elseif { [HTTP::header value Content-Type] contains "application/vnd.ms-excel" } {
      HTTP::header replace Pragma public
      HTTP::header replace Cache-Control public
   }
   elseif { [HTTP::header value Content-Type] contains "application/msword" } {
      HTTP::header replace Pragma public
      HTTP::header replace Cache-Control public }
   else {
      return
   }
}&nbsp;

f5noob29 · Answer

Hi,This is what i currently have but it does not seem to be working. I used the iRule that you suggested but ended up modifying it as it is not working according to their requirements and so that's the end result. when HTTP_REQUEST {
set uri [URI::encode [HTTP::uri]]
set host [URI::encode [HTTP::host]]
set referer [URI::encode [ HTTP::header Referer ]]
&nbsp;
	if { [string tolower [HTTP::uri]] starts_with "/URI/"} {
	  HTTP::respond 301 Location "https://NEW-APP.com/redirect/?url=http://$(host)$(uri)__referrer=${referer}&amp;[HTTP::query]" { HTTP::header replace "Cache-Control" "no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, max-age=0" }
	}
}

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301 Redirect but Adding Original URL and Referrer

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