redirecting user to fully qualified teamsite URL

TS 6.5 on Solaris

We are having issues with proxies and cookies with some of our end users when they do not use the fully qualified URL to access our TeamSite server. For example:

http://teamsite <-- bad Smiley Sad

http://teamsite.sun.com <-- good!

I am trying to figure out ways to redirect the user, and have thought of the following:
o hack the login page to redirect the user to the fully qualified URL by checking the current HTTP_HOST
o create a custom rewrite rule. I have not done much rewriting, so I am less sure about this option.

Any hints or suggestions?

Thanks,
~jed

--
Jed Michnowicz
jedm@sun.com
Content Management Engineering
Sun Microsystems

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Comments

Migrateduser

What exactly happens when they enter only the subdomain? Do they even see the login page? How do you know it's the cookies being set that's the problem? What are your *_host settings in iw.cfg?

Dave

Current Environments:
(1,2) TS 6.5 on W2K3
(3) Vignette V7 Portal on Solaris 9

jed

Let me clarify....

The main reasons for this is so users do not use our internal web proxies since they mess with launchpad. This is a lot easier to control when the fully qualified URL is used. For example, all users should have the following in the browser config:

HTTP Proxy: foo-bar.sun.com:8080
No Proxy For: .sun.com

If a user goes to http://teamsite.sun.com, the internal proxy will not be used and launchpad works since it is excluded in the browser config. However, if a user goes to http://teamsite, the internal web proxy will be used and launchpad breaks. This is an effort to reduce internal support tickets.

--
Jed Michnowicz
jedm@sun.com
Content Management Engineering
Sun Microsystems

Migrateduser

Okay, but what does your iw.cfg look like, specifically how your *_host values defined?

Current Environments:
(1,2) TS 6.5 on W2K3
(3) Vignette V7 Portal on Solaris 9

jed

launchpad_hostname=star-dev
servlet_host=localhost
host=star-dev.sfbay.sun.com
customer_webserver_host=star-dev.sfbay.sun.com
iwproxy_host=localhost

--
Jed Michnowicz
jedm@sun.com
Content Management Engineering
Sun Microsystems

Migrateduser

I'm not sure what the ramifications are of your *_host entries varying between subdomain-only and full domain format, but I'm thinking that this is why your users are having problems with Launchpad. Also, I don't think you should be using localhost for any of these values.

Someone else please comment on my question above.

Dave

Current Environments:
(1,2) TS 6.5 on W2K3
(3) Vignette V7 Portal on Solaris 9

jed

After an hour of fiddling, I have come up with a solution that I am happy with. I have hacked up the login.jsp page with some custom java/javascript. If anyone is interested, my changes are as follows:

1. Add the following import so I can get the hostname of the box:
<%@ page import="java.net.InetAddress" %>

2. Add the following java so I have a variable with the desired fully qualified hostname (this variable is injected into some javascript):

// get the current hostname and append .sfbay.sun.com to
// get the full qualified URL of the TeamSite server
String hostname="";
try{
InetAddress me = InetAddress.getLocalHost();
hostname=me.getHostName();
}catch(Exception e){
// buh
}
String bestHttpHost=hostname +".sfbay.sun.com";

3. Add the following javascript routine:

// js function to redirect the user back to the same URL
// using the fully qualified URL of the server
function redirectToProperHttpHost(){
var currentHttpHost=location.host;
// when invoked, bestHttpHost will be hostname.sfbay.sun.com
var bestHttpHost="<%=bestHttpHost%>";
var path=location.pathname;
var params=location.search;
if(currentHttpHost != bestHttpHost){
window.location="http://"+ bestHttpHost + path + params;
}
}

4. Make sure redirectToProperHttpHost() is invoked when the login page loads by adding redirectToProperHttpHost() to the init function

function iw_init_login_page()
{

// js function to redirect the user back to the same URL
// using the fully qualified URL of the server
redirectToProperHttpHost();
[...]

--
Jed Michnowicz
jedm@sun.com
Content Management Engineering
Sun Microsystems

DJ_At_Work

This is great, thanks Jed for the example!

Cheers,
Drew