Routing requests from a plug-in to a proxy server

This topic provides information on setting up a WebSphere Application Server plug-in to route requests to a proxy server.

 

About this task

An administrator may choose to set up a Web server, such as IBM HTTP Server, with the WAS plug-in as a front-end to the proxy server. The plug-in configuration file for such a topology cannot use the traditional plug-in configuration generation mechanism if the requests are routed through the proxy server.

To generate the plugin-cfg.xml file to use with the Web server plug-in to route through the proxy server, complete the following steps:

 

Procedure

  1. From the administrative console, click Servers > Proxy servers > server_name > HTTP proxy server settings > Proxy settings.
  2. In the Generate plug-in configuration drop-down menu, select the cell scope. This generates the plugin-cfg.xml file for all proxy servers in the cell. You will find the plugin-cfg.xml in the <profile_dir>/etc/plugin-cfg.xml directory. Select node or server for a smaller scope.
  3. Optional: If you have a script that manually copies the plugin-cfg.xml file from the node to the plug-in installation location, enter the path to the script in the Plugin config change script field.
  4. In the Trusted Security Proxy field, add the hostname or IP address of the node for the plug-in that serves as the trusted intermediary for the proxy server.
  5. Click OK.
  6. Disable the automatic propagation of the plug-in if you are using IBM HTTP Server with remote administration. From the administrative console, click Servers > Web servers > server_name > Plug-in properties. Deselect Automatically propagate plugin configuration file. This will prevent WAS from copying the traditional plugin-cfg.xml file over the proxy server plugin-cfg.xml file.
  7. Save your changes.
  8. Stop and restart the proxy server. The plugin-cfg.xml file will be in the <install_root>/<profile_dir>/etc directory for the node. If you do not have a script in the Plugin config change script field, manually copy the plugin-cfg.xml file to the plug-in.

 

What to do next

To ensure that the proxy server trusts the Web server, add the host name or address of the Web server to the Trusted security proxies section on the Proxy Settings panel of the WAS administrative console (Servers > Proxy servers > server_name > HTTP proxy server settings > Proxy settings). This enables the proxy server to honor the WAS private headers that are set by the fronting intermediary server.