Reverse Proxy Patterns

Overview Implementing an application-level server-side proxy 1 [GHJV95][POSA96] can result in a large number of positive consequences. However, the aspects of network security, single sign on and integration imply different forces upon such a reverse proxy. Attaching the surrounding infrastructure can show additional roadblocks for a successful deployment. The following patterns try to structure the forces, regarding the different aspects into three patterns, that can be studied to understand reverse proxy solutions and applied to design reverse proxy architectures. The most popular reverse proxies implement the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), therefore the rest of the paper just refers to such HTTP reverse proxies. Nevertheless, the underlying patterns are also applicable for any other Internet protocols, for example FTP. The Protection Reverse Proxy pattern shows how to protect your servers on the application protocol level at the network perimeter. An Integration Reverse Proxy allows to integrate a collection of servers under a common entry point, thus hiding the network and host internals. The Front Door pattern gives guidance for single sign on and access control to a set of web applications. 1. In contrast to a " regular " proxy configured within a user's browser, such a transparent server-side proxy is called a " reverse proxy " .