Difference between revisions of "IIS as Reverse Proxy"

Revision as of 18:12, 8 November 2019

Using Windows Server as a Reverse Proxy for IIS 8 and above (Server 2012 and above).

It is often necessary to us a Reverse Proxy to terminate HTTPS requests and then forward those requests to specific server instances for load balancing or similar services.

Goal: Redirect https: requests to a separate IIS instance (or site) which only supports http: scheme.

Open the Server Manager - select the computer to run manager and "add Roles and Features Wizard
Select "Role-based or feature-based Installation - click next
Select Server - click next
Select Web Server (IIS) - it is assumed that IIS has already been installed - if not do that
Add security features - Request Filtering, Basic Authentication - Windows Authentication
Click Install - this takes several minutes
Install additional Microsoft IIS modules (If unsure go to cmd.exe and type %windir%\system32\inetsrv\config\applicationhost.config, and search for the string "<globalModules>".
1. Install the Windows URL RewriteModule. It can be downloaded from https://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/url-rewrite (may be present already)
2. Install Application Request Routing (ARR). It can be downloaded from https://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/application-request-routing
Open Internet Information services (IIS) manager (for example from administrative tools)
Click on the Server in the left pane (click a second time if you don't see sites)
Click on sites
Add an new site with some friendly name that will be used to navigate to the site - point to some empty file directory, for example C:\inetpub\wwwroot\tomjones, leave rest empty
Ensure there is an SSL certificate on the machine that can be used
Add binding - Click site name - in right pane click "Bindings" - in Site Bindings click "Add" - add type https on port 443 (or other if 443 is not available) - enter domain name - save

@@ Line 19: / Line 19: @@
 #Click on sites
 #Add an new site with some friendly name that will be used to navigate to the site - point to some empty file directory, for example C:\inetpub\wwwroot\tomjones, leave rest empty
+#Ensure there is an SSL certificate on the machine that can be used
+#Add binding - Click site name - in right pane click "Bindings" - in Site Bindings click "Add" - add type https on port 443 (or other if 443 is not available) - enter domain name - save
-#Clink on (typically) Default Web Site (the rewrite rules created here will apply to all of the sub-sites, which is probably the place to be)
-#Double click on "URL Rewrite" in the center pane. - the assumption here is that there are no existing rules, if there are it gets complicated.
-#Click "Add Rule" in the right pane.
 ==References==