Best Practices for Configuring Your Middle Tier

Configuring HTTP Sessions in Environments With Proxy Configurations

SAS Web Report Studio 4.3 uses absolute URL addresses that must be associated with the correct HTTP session. The SAS Logon Manager knows only the address that is stored in metadata, and the SAS Logon Manager redirects requests to that location.

If that address differs from the URL specified by the user, then the user's session is not tracked correctly. (For example, suppose the user specifies the internal address http://shortname/application instead of the external address http://shortname.example.com/application.)

When SAS Web Report Studio receives an HTTP request, the request is redirected to the SAS Logon Manager. The SAS Logon Manager authenticates the request, and redirects it back to SAS Web Report Studio.

An exception applies to this process if your environment has any front-end processor (for example, Apache, Web clustering, IBM Tivoli Access Manager WebSEAL, or CA SiteMinder) configured. In these scenarios, or if a reverse proxy is configured with WebSEAL, the HTTP session request comes via an internal address. For example, the request might come via http://host:port/application instead of an external address http://proxiedhost/application. This sequence of events triggers a redirection filter, which typically sends the request to a location in the metadata where the request format is expected in the form of shortname.example.com. However, the redirection filter is not required because the proxy sends the request to the same location, and the same address is always used.

To ensure successful resolution of HTTP session requests in a secure environment (any environment with a front-end processor), the redirection filter must be disabled for SAS Web Report Studio. In addition, it is highly recommended that you disable this filter for all SAS applications.

To disable the redirection filter for all SAS Web applications, follow these steps:

In SAS Management Console, navigate to Plug-ins Application Management Configuration Manager SAS Application Infrastructure Properties and right-click to display the SAS Application Infrastructure Properties dialog box.
Click the Advanced tab.
Click Add to display the Define New Property Window.
Enter the property name as shown, and specify the property value:

Property Name: App.RedirectionFilterDisabled

Property Value: True
Click OK to exit the Define New Property window.
Click OK to exit the SAS Application Infrastructure Properties dialog box.
To enable this change to go into effect, restart your Web application server.

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