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Using Web Server Plug-Ins with WebLogic Server

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Installing and Configuring the Microsoft IIS Plug-In

The following sections describe how to install and configure the Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In:

 

Overview of the Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In

The Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In proxies requests from a Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) to WebLogic Server. The plug-in enhances an IIS installation by allowing WebLogic Server to handle those requests that require the dynamic functionality of WebLogic Server.

You use the Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In in an environment where the Internet Information Server (IIS) serves static pages such as HTML pages, while dynamic pages such as HTTP Servlets or JavaServer Pages are served by WebLogic Server. WebLogic Server may be operating in a different process, possibly on a different host. To the end user—the browser—the HTTP requests delegated to WebLogic Server still appear to be coming from IIS. The HTTP-tunneling facility of the WebLogic client-server protocol also operates through the plug-in, providing access to all WebLogic Server services.

You target a WebLogic Server instance using the WebLogicHost and WebLogicPort parameters in the plug-in configuration file. You target a WebLogic Server cluster or group of non-clustered servers using the WebLogicCluster parameter. For information about setting plug-in parameters, see Parameters for Web Server Plug-Ins.

Connection Pooling and Keep-Alive

The Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In improves connection performance by using a pool of connections from the plug-in to WebLogic Server. The plug-in implements HTTP 1.1 keep-alive connections between the plug-in and WebLogic Server by re-using the same connection for subsequent requests from the same client. If the connection is inactive for more than 30 seconds, (or a user-defined amount of time) the connection is closed. The connection with the client can be reused to connect to the same client at a later time if it has not timed out. You can disable this feature if desired. For more information, see KeepAliveEnabled.

 

Certifications

The Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In is supported on Windows. Plug-ins are not supported on all operating systems for all releases. For information on platform support for specific versions of Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In, see Platform Support for WebLogic Server Plug-ins and Web Servers in Supported Configurations for WebLogic Server 8.1.

 

Installing and Configuring the Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In

The WebLogic Server plug-in module for the Microsoft Internet Information Server is a dynamic link library called iisproxy.dll. It is supported by an iisproxy.ini file that contains name=value pairs that define configuration parameters for the plug-in.

To install the Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In:

  1. Copy the iisproxy.dll file from the WL_HOME/server/bin directory of your WebLogic Server installation (where WL_HOME represents the top-level directory for the WebLogic Platform and Server and contains the WebLogic Server installation files) into a convenient directory that is accessible to IIS. BEA recommends that this directory also contain the iisproxy.ini file that you will create in step 4. Set the user permissions for the iisproxy.dll file to include the name of the user who will be running IIS. One way to do this is by right clicking on the iisproxy.dll file and selecting Permissions, then adding the username of the person who will be running IIS.
  2. If you want to configure proxying by file extension (MIME type) complete this step. (You can configure proxying by path in addition to or instead of configuring by MIME type. See step 3. )
    1. Start the Internet Information Service Manager by selecting it from the Start menu.
    2. In the left panel of the Service Manager, select your IIS Web site (the default is "Default Web Site").

      3. Figure:Service Manager


       
    3. Click the "Play" arrow in the toolbar to start.
    4. Open the properties for the selected Web site by right-clicking the Web site selection in the left panel and selecting Properties.

      5. Figure:Service Manager 2


       
    5. In the Properties panel, select the Home Directory tab, and click the Configuration button in the Applications Settings section.

      6. Figure: Applications Settings


       
    6. On the Mappings tab, click the Add button.

      7. Figure: Mappings


       
    7. In the Add dialog box, browse to the iisproxy.dll file.
    8. Set the Extension to the type of file that you want to proxy to WebLogic Server.
    9. If you are configuring for IIS 6.0 or later, be sure to deselect the "Check that file exists" check box. The behavior of this check has changed from earlier versions of IIS: it used to check that the iisproxy.dll file exists; now it checks that files requested from the proxy exist in the root directory of the Web server. If the check does not find the files there, the iisproxy.dll file will not be allowed to proxy requests to WebLogic Server.
    10. In the Directory Security tab, set the Method exclusions as needed to create a secure installation.
    11. When you finish, click the OK button to save the configuration.
    12. When you finish configuring file types, click the OK button to close the Properties panel.

      13. Note: In the URL, any path information you add after the server and port is passed directly to WebLogic Server. For example, if you request a file from IIS with the URL:

      http://myiis.com/jspfiles/myfile.jsp

      it is proxied to WebLogic Server with a URL such as

      http://mywebLogic:7001/jspfiles/myfile.jsp

      Note: To avoid out-of-process errors, do not deselect the "Cache ISAPI Applications" check box.

  3. If you want to configure proxying by path complete this step. (In addition to proxying by file type, you can configure the Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In to serve files based on their path by specifying some additional parameters in the iisproxy.ini file.) Proxying by path takes precedence over proxying by MIME type.

    4. You can also proxy multiple websites defined in IIS by path. For more information, see Proxying Requests from Multiple Virtual Websites to WebLogic Server.

    To configure proxying by path:

    1. Start the Internet Information Service Manager by selecting it from the Start menu.
    2. Place the iisforward.dll file in the same directory as the iisproxy.dll file and add the iisforward.dll file as a filter service in IIS (WebSite Properties —> ISAPI Filters tab —> Add the iisforward dll). Set the user permissions for the iisforward.dll file to include the name of the user who will be running IIS. One way to do this is by right clicking on the iisproxy.dll file and selecting Permissions, then adding the username of the person who will be running IIS.
    3. Register .wlforward as a special file type to be handled by iisproxy.dll in IIS.
    4. Define the property WlForwardPath in iisproxy.ini. WlForwardPath defines the path that is proxied to WebLogic Server, for example: WlForwardPath=/weblogic.
    5. Set the PathTrim parameter to trim off the WlForwardPath when necessary. For example, using 
      6. WlForwardPath=/weblogic
      PathTrim=/weblogic

      trims a request from IIS to Weblogic Server. Therefore, /weblogic/session is changed to /session.

    6. If you want requests that do not contain extra path information (in other words, requests containing only a host name), set the DefaultFileName parameter to the name of the welcome page of the Web Application to which the request is being proxied. The value of this parameter is appended to the URL.
    7. If you need to debug your application, set the Debug=ON parameter in iisproxy.ini. A c:\tmp\iisforward.log is generated containing a log of the plug-in's activity that you can use for debugging purposes.
  4. In WebLogic Server, create the iisproxy.ini file.

    5. The iisproxy.ini file contains name=value pairs that define configuration parameters for the plug-in. The parameters are listed in General Parameters for Web Server Plug-Ins.

    Use the example iisproxy.ini file in this section (Sample iisproxy.ini File on page 3-9) as a template for your iisproxy.ini file.

    Note: Changes in the parameters will not go into effect until you restart the "IIS Admin Service" (under services, in the control panel).

    BEA recommends that you locate the iisproxy.ini file in the same directory that contains the iisproxy.dll file. If you place the file elsewhere, note that WebLogic Server searches for iisproxy.ini in the following directories, in the following order:

    1. in the same directory where iisproxy.dll is located
    2. in the home directory of the most recent version of WebLogic Server that is referenced in the Windows Registry

      3. (If WebLogic Server does not find the iisproxy.ini file in the home directory, it continues looking in the Windows Registry for older versions of WebLogic Server and looks for the iisproxy.ini file in the home directories of those installations.)

    3. in the directory c:\weblogic, if it exists
  5. Define the WebLogic Server host and port number to which the Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In proxies requests. Depending on your configuration, there are two ways to define the host and port:
  6. Optionally, enable HTTP tunneling by following the instructions for proxying by path (see step 3above), substituting the WebLogic Server host name and the WebLogic Server port number, or the name of a WebLogic Cluster that you wish to handle HTTP tunneling requests.
    1. If you are using weblogic.jar and the T3 protocol, set WlForwardPath to this URL pattern:
	WlForwardPath=*/HTTPClnt*
    1. If you are using IIOP, which is the only protocol used by the WebLogic Server thin client, wlclient.jar, set the value of WlForwardPath to */iiop*:
	WlForwardPath=*/iiop*

You do not need to use the PathTrim parameter.

  1. Set any additional parameters in the iisproxy.ini file. A complete list of parameters is available in the appendix General Parameters for Web Server Plug-Ins.
  2. If you are proxying servlets from IIS to WebLogic Server and you are not proxying by path, read the section Proxying Servlets from IIS to WebLogic Server.
  3. The installed version of IIS with its initial settings does not allow the iisproxy.dll. Use the IIS Manager console to enable the Plug-In:
    1. Open the IIS Manager console.
    2. Select Web Service Extensions.
    3. Set "All Unknown ISAPI Extensions" to Allowed.

Note: Step 9 is applicable only if you are trying to configure IIS 6.0.

 

Proxying Requests from Multiple Virtual Websites to WebLogic Server

To proxy requests from multiple websites (defined as virtual directories in IIS) to WebLogic Server:

  1. Create a new directory for the virtual directories. This directory will contain dll and ini files used to define the proxy.
  2. Copy iisforward.dll to the directory you created in step1.
  3. Register the iisforward.dll for each website with IIS.
  4. Create a file called iisforward.ini. Place this file in the same directory that contains iisforward.dll. This file should contain the following entry for each virtual website defined in IIS:
    5. vhostN=websiteName:port
    websiteName    :port=dll_directory/iisproxy.ini

    Where:

    For example:

    vhost1=strawberry.com:7001
    strawberry.com:7001=c:\strawberry\iisproxy.ini
    vhost2=blueberry.com:7001
    blueberry.com:7001=c:\blueberry\iisproxy.ini
    ...
  5. Create an iisproxy.ini file for the virtual Web sites, as described in step 4 of this procedure. Copy this iispoxy.ini file to the directory you created in step 1 of this procedure.
  6. Copy iisproxy.dll to the directory you created in step 1 of this procedure.
  7. In IIS, set the value for the Application Protection option to high (isolated). If the Application Protection option is set to Medium(pooled), the iisproxy.dll that registered as the first website will always be invoked. In this event, all the requests will be proxied to the same WLS instances defined in the iisproxy.ini of the first website.

Sample iisproxy.ini File

Here is a sample iisproxy.ini file for use with a single, non-clustered WebLogic Server. Comment lines are denoted with the "#" character. 

# This file contains initialization name/value pairs
# for the IIS/WebLogic plug-in.
WebLogicHost=localhost
WebLogicPort=7001
ConnectTimeoutSecs=20
ConnectRetrySecs=2

Here is a sample iisproxy.ini file with clustered WebLogic Servers. Comment lines are denoted with the "#" character. 

# This file contains initialization name/value pairs
# for the IIS/WebLogic plug-in.
WebLogicCluster=myweblogic.com:7001,yourweblogic.com:7001
ConnectTimeoutSecs=20
ConnectRetrySecs=2

Note: If you are using SSL between the plug-in and WebLogic Server, the port number should be defined as the SSL listen port.

 

Setting Up Perimeter Authentication

Use perimeter authentication to secure your WebLogic Server applications that are accessed through the Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In.

A WebLogic Identity Assertion Provider authenticates tokens from outside systems that access your WebLogic Server application, including users who access your WebLogic Server application through the Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In. Create an Identity Assertion Provider that will safely secure your Plug-In as follows:

  1. Create a custom Identity Assertion Provider on your WebLogic Server application. See How to Develop a Custom Identity Assertion Provider in Developing Security Providers for WebLogic Server.
  2. Configure the custom Identity Assertion Provider to support the "Cert" token type and make it the active token type. See How to Create New Token Types in Developing Security Providers for WebLogic Server.
  3. Set the clientCertProxy attribute to True in the web.xml deployment descriptor file for the Web application (if using a cluster, you can instead set the ClientCertProxyEnabled attribute to true for the whole cluster on the Administration Console Cluster-->Configuration-->General tab). See context-param in Developing Web Applications for WebLogic Server.
  4. Once you have set clientCertProxy, be sure to use a connection filter to ensure that WebLogic Server accepts connections only from the machine on which the Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In is running. See Using Network Connection Filters in Programming WebLogic Security.

See Identity Assertion Providers in Developing Security Providers for WebLogic Server for more information about Identity Assertion Providers.

 

Using SSL with the Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In

You can use the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol to protect the connection between WebLogic Server and the Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In. The SSL protocol provides confidentiality and integrity to the data passed between the Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In and WebLogic Server.

The Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In does not use the transport protocol (http or https) to determine whether the SSL protocol will be used to protect the connection between the proxy plug-in and the Microsoft Internet Information Server. In order to use the SSL protocol with the Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In, configure the WebLogic Server instance receiving the proxied requests to use the SSL protocol. The port on the WebLogic Server that is configured for secure SSL communication is used by the Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In to communicate with the Microsoft Internet Information Server.

To use the SSL protocol between Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In and WebLogic Server:

  1. Configure WebLogic Server for SSL. For more information, see Configuring the SSL Protocol.
  2. Configure the WebLogic Server SSL listen port. For more information, see Configuring the SSL Protocol.
  3. Set the WebLogicPort parameter in the iisproxy.ini file to the listen port configured in step 2.
  4. Set the SecureProxy parameter in the iisproxy.ini file to ON.
  5. Web server plug-ins require a trusted Certificate Authority file in order to use SSL between the plug-in and WebLogic Server. Use Sun Microsystem's keytool utility to export a trusted Certificate Authority file from the DemoTrust.jks keystore file that resides in BEA_HOME/weblogic81/server/lib.
    1. To extract the wlsdemoca file, for example, use the command:
      2. keytool -export -file trustedcafile.der -keystore DemoTrust.jks -alias wlsdemoca

      Change the alias name to obtain a different trusted CA file from the keystore.

      To look at all of the keystore's trusted CA files, use:

      keytool -list -keystore DemoTrust.jks

      Press enter if prompted for password.

    2. To convert the Certificate Authority file to pem format:
      3. java utils.der2pem trustedcafile.der
  6. Set additional parameters in the iisproxy.ini file that define the SSL connection. For a complete list of parameters, see SSL Parameters for Web Server Plug-Ins.

For example:

WebLogicHost=myweblogic.com
WebLogicPort=7002
SecureProxy=ON

 

Proxying Servlets from IIS to WebLogic Server

You can proxy servlets by path if the iisforward.dll is registered as a filter service in IIS (WebSite Properties-->ISAPI-->Filters tab). You would then invoke your servlet with a URL similar to the following: 

http://IISserver/weblogic/myServlet

To proxy servlets if iisforward.dll is not registered as a filter, you must configure servlet proxying by file type.To proxy servlets by file type:

  1. Register an arbitrary file type (extension) with IIS to proxy the request to the WebLogic Server, as described in step 2. under Installing and Configuring the Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In.
  2. Register your servlet in the appropriate Web Application. For more information on registering servlets, see Configuring Servlets.
  3. Invoke your servlet with a URL formed according to this pattern:

    4. http://www.myserver.com/virtualName/anyfile.ext

    where virtualName is the URL pattern defined in the <servlet-mapping> element of the Web Application deployment descriptor (web.xml) for this servlet and ext is a file type (extension) registered with IIS for proxying to WebLogic Server. The anyfile part of the URL is ignored in this context.

    Note:

 

Testing the Installation

After you install and configure the Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In, follow these steps for deployment and testing:

  1. Make sure WebLogic Server and IIS are running.
  2. Save a JSP file into the document root of the default Web Application.
  3. Open a browser and set the URL to the IIS + filename.jsp as shown in this example: 
    4. http://myii.server.com/filename.jsp

    If filename.jsp is displayed in your browser, the plug-in is functioning.

 

Connection Errors and Clustering Failover

When the Microsoft Internet Information Server Plug-In attempts to connect to WebLogic Server, the plug-in uses several configuration parameters to determine how long to wait for connections to the WebLogic Server host, and, after a connection is established, how long the plug-in waits for a response. If the plug-in cannot connect or does not receive a response, the plug-in attempts to connect and sends the request to other WebLogic Servers in the cluster. If the connection fails or there is no response from any WebLogic Server instance in the cluster, an error message is sent.

Figure 3-1 demonstrates how the plug-in handles failover.

Possible Causes of Connection Failures

Failure of the WebLogic Server host to respond to a connection request could indicate problems with the host machine, networking problems, or other server failures.

Failure of any WebLogic Server instance in the cluster to respond, could indicate that WebLogic Server is not running or is unavailable, a hung server, a database problem, or other application failure.

Connection Errors with Non-Clustered Servers

If you are running a single instance or multiple non-clustered instances of WebLogic Server, the plug-in only attempts to connect to the server defined with the WebLogicHost parameter. If the attempt fails, an HTTP 503 error message is returned. The plug-in continues trying to connect to WebLogic Server until ConnectTimeoutSecs is exceeded.

The Dynamic Server List

When you specify a list of WebLogic Server instances in the WebLogicCluster parameter, the plug-in uses that list as a starting point for load balancing among the members of the cluster. After the first request is routed to one of these servers, a dynamic server list is returned containing an updated list of servers in the cluster. The updated list adds any new servers in the cluster and deletes any that are no longer part of the cluster or that have failed to respond to requests. This list is updated automatically with the HTTP response when a change in the cluster occurs.

Failover, Cookies, and HTTP Sessions

When a request contains a session information stored in a cookie, in the POST data, or by URL encoding, the session ID contains a reference to the specific server in which the session was originally established (called the primary server) and a reference to an additional server where the original session is replicated (called the secondary server). A request containing a cookie attempts to connect to the primary server. If that attempt fails, the request is routed to the secondary server. If both the primary and secondary servers fail, the session is lost and the plug-in attempts to make a fresh connection to another server in the dynamic cluster list. For more information see Figure 3-1 Connection Failover.

Note: If the POST data is larger than 64K, the plug-in will not parse the POST data to obtain the session ID. Therefore, if you store the session ID in the POST data, the plug-in cannot route the request to the correct primary or secondary server, resulting in possible loss of session data.

Figure 3-1 Connection Failover

Connection Failover


 

Notes:

The HTTP error code thrown by the plug-in depends on the situation. Plug-in will return the HTTP error code 500 in the following conditions:

On the other hand, the HTTP error code 503 is returned when:

 

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