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Basil_Parsley_1's avatar
Basil_Parsley_1
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Dec 21, 2016

Append Forward Slash to base URL in browser - redirect using an irule

How could I set up a redirect as per https://webpage.com >> https://webpage.com/ For when a user does not put the forward slash in the browser .. and the server does not perform this function. I am across the fact the browser will / should always send a URI “/” even if not typed in .

 

Have tried the below does not work (e.g. with Mozilla) as browser is sending uri = “/”

 

when HTTP_REQUEST { if { [HTTP::uri] eq "" } { HTTP::respond 302 Location "; } }

 

Also the below will not work as it creates a redirect loop ..

 

elseif { [HTTP::uri] eq "/" } { HTTP::respond 302 Location “; }

 

Is this easily doable – acknowledging the fact this is / is likely to be cosmetic… subject to browser behaviour.

 

application delivery
iRules

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  • Patrik_Jonsson's avatar
    Patrik_Jonsson
    Icon for MVP rankMVP
    Dec 21, 2016

    Hi Basil

    The browser would always send an URI, no matter if you don't enter one or not. If you don't it will resort to "/".

    The only way an empty uri would reach a server afaik is if somebody is manually compiling a request and sending it. And if it did, the web server would reply with a 400 Bad request.

    Please check the example below:

    echo -ne "GET HTTP/1.1\r\nHost:mywebsite.com\r\nUser-agent: Mozilla/5.0\r\n\r\n" | nc 172.30.175.33 5919
HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Server: Apache
Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 05:12:39 GMT
Connection: close
Content-Length: 324


Bad Request

Bad Request - Invalid URL
HTTP Error 400. The request URL is invalid.

    The reason this is creating a redirect loop:

    if { [HTTP::uri] eq "/" } { 
    HTTP::respond 302 Location “https://webpage.com/"; 
}

    You're sending the user back to "/", which is set to send the user to "/"... and so forth. 🙂

    Hope that answered your question?

    /Patrik

  • Patrik_Jonsson's avatar
    Patrik_Jonsson
    Icon for MVP rankMVP
    Dec 21, 2016

    Hi! I guess I should have been clearer in my answer too... 🙂

    IF by slim chance some user would send a request with an empty URI your original rule would do it:

    when HTTP_REQUEST { 
    if { [HTTP::uri] eq "" } { 
            HTTP::respond 302 Location "https://webpage.com/"; 
    }
}

    As for the forcing the browser to show "/" when the user accesses your site, this is purely on the client side.

    • Chrome does not show it
    • Edge does not show it (does not even show the protocol)
    • Internet explorer shows it

    But in all cases, what's sent to the server is another thing. Chrome and Edge still sends "/", they just don't show it. To change this behavior I suppose the browser settings would be a good start. 🙂

    /Patrik

  • Stanislas_Piro2's avatar
    Stanislas_Piro2
    Icon for Cumulonimbus rankCumulonimbus
    Dec 21, 2016

    Hi Basil,

    Can you post the request when requesting https://webpage.com?

    the request must be:

    GET / HTTP/1.1 Host: webpage.com User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 Connection: close

    If the browser does not set the 

    /
    , is there some string inserted between GET and HTTP?

    How the F5 HTTP profile parse the request? does it raise an error? does it parse HTTP/1.1 as the HTTP::uri?