Topic: Rewriting URLs before they are returned to client - How?

[russch]

Hi There!

Apache newb here.

I need to accomplish the following:

1. User hits my new 2.4 reverse proxy at http://somebox.com

2. I proxy the request through to my "real" app server at http://therealserver.com

3. I also use a re-write rule to add a querystring to the URL: ?Parameter=Foo

4. So, client's request arrives at the my app server as http://therealserver?Parameter=Foo

5. When my app server responds, it is including the Parameter=Foo key/value combination. I don't want this.

6. I want my reverse proxy (somebox.com) to strip "Parameter=Foo" from the string which gets returned to the client.

I have steps 1 & 2 working nicely, but it looks like I can't handle the last bit with with mod_rewrite. I found mod_filter and mod_substitute, but it appears that this stuff is used for re-writing strings IN the document. Can these libs be used to maybe modify (I'm guessing here) the headers so that the "?Parameter=Foo" string can't be seen on the client if they're running something like fiddler?

Thanks!

[James Blond]

How should the URL look like for the user on somebox.com ? somebox.com/parameter/bar ? Or something else?

[russch]

The user lands on the reverse proxy and sees:

http://somebox.com

....The proxy executes a re-write rule to append "?Parameter=Foo", and passes this through to http://therealserver.com:

http://therealserver.com?Parameter=Foo

...the reverse proxy now needs to strip the same string it appended to the URL, so that the client on somebox.com only sees:

http://somebox.com

...however, the "work" done by ?Parameter=Foo will display in the output.

Essentially, I'm trying to "hide" the parameter from curious user who then might try to experiment with putting values on the URL themselves.

Thanks![/b]

[James Blond]

OK, but how should the proxy server know which parameter it shall pass or is it always the same?