WinGate 6.5.1 - WWW proxy redirect problem

[boblowski]

In WinGate 6.2.2 I used a WWW Proxy Service on port 80 with the redirect option to redirect 'http://secure.mydomain.com' requests to 'https://secure.mydomain.com'. A second WWW Proxy Service on port 443 reverse proxied those redirected 'https://secure.mydomain.com' requests to the actual server.

On a new machine I installed a fresh copy of WinGate 6.5.1 (build 1203, the about screen says version 6.5.0) and replicated the parts of my setup I wanted to keep. Everything works fine, except for this redirecting. Every browser request for 'http://secure.mydomain.com' ends back at the http url with a redirect limit error.

Since the security certificate gets loaded, I asume the requests initially gets redirected to the https url, but then somehow ends up back at the http url. If I stop the WWW Proxy Service at port 443 or change the host name set for this reverse proxy service to something else, then the request correctly gets redirected to the https url (but is of course not handled).

Is this a bug introduced with 6.5 or am I missing or misunderstanding something?

[genie]

I will set it up in our test lab - can you send us your configuration please?

[adrien]

is it handled by 2 WWW proxies, or is it the same one handling both http and https?

Sounds to me like it's doing the first redirect, then the second is also redirecting again, which will cause FF and Chrome to complain about a redirect loop, and causes IE to send requests as fast as it can...

Adrien

[boblowski]

There are two WWW services, but only one redirects:

Service 1: WWW Proxy (port 80) > Redirect for host secure.mydomain.com to https://secure.mydomain.com
Service 2: WWW Proxy (port 443, SSL) > Reverse proxy for host secure.mydomain.com to (IP address) port 80

I did more testing, and now think the problem lies not with the redirecting itself, but with the reverse proxying in combination with the backend server after a redirect. If I let the HTTPS WWW Proxy service simply serve an internal web page or if I reverse proxy to a simple web page, everything works as expected. Only when reverse proxying to this backend server, I get this problem.

Exactly the same setup (that is, if I didn't miss some setting :-) ) with exactly the same backend server works fine on WinGate 6.2.2 (still in use). Has anything been changed in 6.5.1?

[boblowski]

Never mind, found the problem.

For testing, I was using a different hostname to access the web app through the reverse proxy. On the webserver are two versions of the web app: the original version and a slightly modified one for operating behind a reverse proxy. The different host name made the webserver serve the original unedited version of the web app, which (since it receives a non SSL request) directs to a http:// page. Which WinGate diligently redirects back to the https:// page...

Thank you for your assistance, and thanks for all the hard work you put into WinGate. And let me take the opportunity to wish everyone at Qbik a very happy and successful 2009!

[adrien]

OK, thanks for letting us know.

Happy new year!