Advanced Networking in AEMaaCs | HTTP/HTTPS connections on non-standard ports for flexible port egress

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Advanced Networking in AEMaaCs | HTTP/HTTPS connections on non-standard ports for flexible port egress

 

by Nikhil Kumar

AEM as a Cloud Service provides advanced networking features that allows for precise management of connections to and from AEM as a Cloud Service programs. In this article we will  learn how to set up and use flexible port egress to support external connections from AEM as a Cloud Service to external services.
Flexible port egress allows for custom, specific port forwarding rules to be attached to AEM as a Cloud Service, allowing connections from AEM to external services to be made.

Recently i was trying to make an API call from my AEMaaCs to an endpoint where the data was coming from a specific port for example: https://test.securedummy.com:8076/v2/cred, Now this used to run properly on my local environment whereas on AEMaaCs environments it was throwing 500. As AEMaaCs blocks some request for non-standard ports (i.e, except 80/443).
So lets see how I made HTTP/HTTPS connections on non-standard ports for flexible port egress.

HTTP/HTTPS connections on non-standard ports (not 80/443) must be proxied out of AEM as a Cloud Service, however they do not need any special portForwards rules, and can use AEM’s advanced networking’s AEM_PROXY_HOST and a reserved proxy port AEM_HTTP_PROXY_PORT or AEM_HTTPS_PROXY_PORT depending on is the destination is HTTP/HTTPS.

Below Java code example is of an OSGi service that can run in AEM as a Cloud Service that makes an HTTP connection to an external web server on 8080. Connections to HTTPS web servers use the environment variables AEM_PROXY_HOST and AEM_HTTPS_PROXY_PORT (default to proxy.tunnel:3128 in AEM releases < 6094).

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package com.adobe.aem.wknd.examples.core.connections.impl; import com.adobe.aem.wknd.examples.core.connections.ExternalService; import org.osgi.service.component.annotations.Component; import org.slf4j.Logger; import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory; import java.io.IOException; import java.net.InetSocketAddress; import java.net.ProxySelector; import java.net.URI; import java.net.http.HttpClient; import java.net.http.HttpRequest; import java.net.http.HttpResponse; import java.time.Duration; @component public class HttpExternalServiceImpl implements ExternalService {     private static final Logger log = LoggerFactory.getLogger(HttpExternalServiceImpl.class);     @Override     public boolean isAccessible() {         HttpClient client;         // Use System.getenv("AEM_PROXY_HOST") and proxy port System.getenv("AEM_HTTP_PROXY_PORT")         // or System.getenv("AEM_HTTPS_PROXY_PORT"), depending on if the destination requires HTTP/HTTPS         if (System.getenv("AEM_PROXY_HOST") != null) {             // Create a ProxySelector that uses to AEM's provided AEM_PROXY_HOST, with a fallback of proxy.tunnel, and proxy port using the AEM_HTTP_PROXY_PORT variable.             // If the destination requires HTTPS, then use the variable AEM_HTTPS_PROXY_PORT instead of AEM_HTTP_PROXY_PORT.             ProxySelector proxySelector = ProxySelector.of(new InetSocketAddress(                 System.getenv().getOrDefault("AEM_PROXY_HOST", "proxy.tunnel"),                 Integer.parseInt(System.getenv().get("AEM_HTTP_PROXY_PORT"))));             client = HttpClient.newBuilder().proxy(proxySelector).build();             log.debug("Using HTTPClient with AEM_PROXY_HOST");         } else {             client = HttpClient.newBuilder().build();             // If no proxy is set up (such as local dev)             log.debug("Using HTTPClient without AEM_PROXY_HOST");         }         // Prepare the full URI to request, note this will have the         // - Scheme (http/https)         // - External host name         // - External port         // The external service URI, including the scheme/host/port, is defined in code, and NOT in Cloud Manager portForwards rules.         URI uri = URI.create("https://test.securedummy.com:8076/v2/cred,");         // Prepare the HttpRequest         HttpRequest request = HttpRequest.newBuilder().uri(uri).timeout(Duration.ofSeconds(2)).build();         // Send the HttpRequest using the configured HttpClient         HttpResponse<String> response = null;         try {             // Request the URL             response = client.send(request, HttpResponse.BodyHandlers.ofString());             log.debug("HTTP response body: {} ", response.body());             // Our simple example returns true is response is successful! (200 status code)             return response.statusCode() == 200;         } catch (IOException e) {             return false;         } catch (InterruptedException e) {             return false;         }     } }

So in AEMaaCs it makes use of AEM_PROXY_HOST to create ProxySelector which can make a call to non-standard port in AEMaaCs.

When creating HTTP/HTTPS connections to non-standard ports (not-80/443) from AEM, the connections must be made through special host and ports, provided via placeholders.

AEM provides two sets of special Java system variables that map to AEM’s HTTP/HTTPS proxies.

Variable name	Use	Java™ code	OSGi configuration
AEM_PROXY_HOST	Proxy host for both HTTP/HTTPS connections	System.getenv().getOrDefault("AEM_PROXY_HOST", "proxy.tunnel")	$[env:AEM_PROXY_HOST;default=proxy.tunnel]
AEM_HTTP_PROXY_PORT	Proxy port for HTTPS connections (set fallback to 3128)	System.getenv().getOrDefault("AEM_HTTP_PROXY_PORT", 3128)	$[env:AEM_HTTP_PROXY_PORT;default=3128]
AEM_HTTPS_PROXY_PORT	Proxy port for HTTPS connections (set fallback to 3128)	System.getenv().getOrDefault("AEM_HTTPS_PROXY_PORT", 3128)	$[env:AEM_HTTPS_PROXY_PORT;default=3128]

Thank you for reading.
Happy Coding!