Setting Up an HTTP Accelerator Server

HTTP acceleration is also known as reverse proxy. In this case, the server acts as the front end to your Web servers on your Internet or intranet. Heavily loaded servers benefit from off-loading frequent requests to the proxy server. Security is also increased when the IP addresses of your Web servers are hidden from the Internet.

You need at least one private and one public address to use the proxy server. You can, however, use a single address as both a public address and a private address.The HTTP accelerator listens on interfaces identified as Public or Both, but not on interfaces identified as Private. The best security involves two interfaces.

You can set up a server to be an HTTP accelerator server, an HTTP proxy server, or both.

To set up an HTTP accelerator server:

  1. In NetWare Administrator, select the Novell BorderManager 3.8 Setup page for the server.

  2. Click the Acceleration tab, select the HTTP Acceleration check box.

  3. Click Details or double-click the HTTP Acceleration service.

  4. Click Add to add a new acceleration server to the HTTP Accelerator list:

    1. Specify whether to enable this HTTP accelerator server after you have set it up.

      The default is Disabled. Specify to disable the server if you are setting up for multiple accelerations. You can disable one or more servers without affecting the other accelerated sites.

    2. Specify whether to enable authentication for this accelerator.

    3. Specify the accelerator server name.

      If reverse proxy authentication is enabled the accelerator server name must be the DNS domain name of the Web site that is being accelerated. The DNS domain name entry should be the same for both inbound and outbound configurations.

    4. Specify the port number the origin Web server is listening on for incoming connections.

      The default is 80 for HTTP.

    5. Click Add, then specify a Web server name or IP address.

    6. Click Add, then select one or more public proxy IP addresses.

      These are the addresses the accelerator will listen on for incoming connections from the Internet.

      You can associate one or several public IP addresses with a particular domain name, but the combination of the IP address and the port must be unique.

      For example, you have a Web server www1.myco.com and two proxy IP addresses (1.2.3.4 and 1.2.3.5), and the Web server is listening on port 80. You can configure an accelerator entry for www1.myco.com with port 80 and two proxy IP addresses (1.2.3.4 and 1.2.3.5).As another example, you have multiple Web servers and several proxy IP addresses. You can configure two entries: one for www1.myco.com with port 80 and IP address 1.2.3.4, and another for www2.myco.com with port 80 and IP address 1.2.3.5.

    7. Specify whether to accelerate on a different port, and specify an accelerator port number.

      All internal Web server links must be relative URLs.

  5. Click OK, then click OK again from the Novell BorderManager 3.8 Setup page.

To set up authentication for an HTTP accelerator server, refer to Setting Up Proxy Authentication.