Zero Installation Rules Testing

There may be times when you wish to test rules against a site without affecting that site in any way and without installing anything. Typically, this applies to an initial first trial of Composable Architecture Platform, tests against websites external to your organization, or for convenience where you are waiting on the installation of a built-in proxy or inline filter.

The zero installation rules testing approach relies on the forwarding proxy and browser proxy built into the console application. The following example will reiterate the sample from the earlier section, Quick product introduction using Google's search page.

Preparing for the test

The first step in this example is to prepare the browser proxy so that all traffic to and from Google is successfully routed via the Composable Architecture Platform Proxy Server. This will give you visibility of the data and provide all of the information needed to manipulate it.

Many browsers have in-built security features to prevent user access to websites whenever there is an untrusted SSL certificate, and will block the incoming request without exception. In this example because it is not possible to install Google’s SSL certificate to the Proxy Server, to overcome this set the Server Definitions for the Proxy Server located in Administration by clicking on the Proxy Server as follows.

Server Definitions folder

Click on the Forwarding tab and set the Request redirection properties for Google as follows. This example is for a UK IP address request that follows the redirect of Google.com to Google.co.uk based upon the IP geolocation from the originating browser.

The first line entry is for example format use only and has no impact on the Proxy Server:

• http://thishost>http://thishost:8001

• http://google.com>https://google.com

• http://www.google.com>https://www.google.com

• http://google.co.uk>https://google.co.uk

• http://www.google.co.uk>https://www.google.co.uk

Proxy Server, Forwarding tab

Once the redirection settings have been input, scroll to the bottom of the page and save the modified Proxy Server definition.

Save button

The Proxy Server will now successfully route the http to https protocol redirection and allow the browser to access the website even without a correct SSL certificate.

To prepare for the test, start by deploying and starting the BasicWebTrial configuration from the Product Trial repository to the Proxy Server. This will allow you to see the data flowing from the website.

Setting up the browser proxy

Depending on the type of web browser being used, you should now set the manual proxy configuration to tell the browser to go through the Composable Architecture Platform built in proxy.

The following shows how to configure the browser proxy in Firefox Quantum 60.0 on Windows 2012 Server:

Firefox Quantum menu

Select Options then click on Network Proxy > Settings:

Browser Network Proxy

Set the proxy options as shown below:

Proxy Options

Please note that if you have changed the ports for the browser proxy in the server settings for the built-in proxy, then these settings may differ.

Getting the data

Now go to the website you wish to test (in this example: http://google.com). The data will quickly start flowing to the console:

Browser console

Writing rules

You can now start writing rules, deploy them to the Proxy Server, and test them. The only place this will have any effect is for transactions coming from the browser with the browser proxy set. For example, you could create a simple content rule that replaces the Google logo, adds a link to your intranet, or scans for bad language used in searches. The possibilities are endless.

Restrictions

By default, the built in Proxy Server settings will only accept connections from the local host (127.0.0.1). This restriction is in place to ensure a given Composable Architecture Platform Server installation does not become an open proxy. The various server settings can be controlled via the server definition of the Proxy Server.