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Publishing a single Web site or load balancer over HTTP

  • Article

Applies To: Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG)

This topic provides instructions for publishing over HTTP. For information about how to publish over an SSL secured connection, see Publishing a single Web site or load balancer over HTTPS.

To publish a single Web site or load balancer over HTTP

  1. In the Forefront TMG Management console, in the tree, click the Firewall Policy node.

  2. In the Tasks pane, click the Toolbox tab.

  3. On the Toolbox tab, click Network Objects, click New, and then select Web Listener to open the New Web Listener Wizard.

  4. Complete the New Web Listener Wizard as outlined in the following table.

    Page Field or property Setting or action

    Welcome to the New Web Listener Wizard

    Web listener name

    Type a name for the Web listener. For example, type:

    HTTP Web Site Listener

    Client Connection Security

    Select Do not require SSL secured connections with clients.

    Web Listener IP Addresses

    Listen for incoming Web requests on these networks

    Select the External network. Click Select IP Addresses, and then select Specified IP Addresses on the Forefront TMG computer in the selected network. In the Available IP Addresses list, select the IP address for the Web site, click Add, and then click OK.

              </p>
        </td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td colspan="2">
          <p>
            <strong>Authentication Settings</strong>
          </p>
        </td>
        <td colspan="1">
          <p>
            <strong>Select how clients will provide credentials to Forefront TMG</strong>
          </p>
        </td>
        <td colspan="2">
          <p>In the drop-down list, select <strong>No Authentication</strong>.</p>
          <p>

          </p>
        </td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td colspan="2">
          <p>
            <strong>Single Sign On </strong>
            <strong>Settings</strong>
          </p>
        </td>
        <td colspan="1">
          <p>
            <strong>Enable SSO for Web sites published with this listener</strong>
          </p>
        </td>
        <td colspan="2">
          <p>Single sign-on (SSO) is available only when forms-based authentication is used. To enable SSO, click <strong>Add</strong>, and then specify a domain within which SSO will be applied.</p>
        </td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td colspan="2">
          <p>
            <strong>Completing the New Web Listener Wizard</strong>
          </p>
        </td>
        <td colspan="1">
          <p />
        </td>
        <td colspan="2">
          <p>Review the settings, and then click <strong>Finish</strong>.</p>
        </td>
      </tr>
    </table>

  5. In the Tasks pane, click the Tasks tab.

  6. On the Tasks tab, click Publish Web Sites to open the New Web Publishing Rule Wizard.

  7. Complete the New Web Publishing Rule Wizard as outlined in the following table.

    Page Field or property Setting or action

    Welcome to the New Web Publishing Rule Wizard

    Web publishing rule name

    Type a name for the Web publishing rule. For example, type:

    Single Web Site

    Select Rule Action

    Action

    Select Allow.

    Publishing Type

    Select Publish a single Web site or load balancer.

    Server Connection Security

    Select Use non-secured connections to connect the published Web server or Web farm.

    Internal Publishing Details (1)

    Internal site name

    Type the host name that Forefront TMG will use in HTTP request messages sent to the published server.

    If you are publishing a single Web server and the internal site name specified in this field is not resolvable and is not the computer name or IP address of the published server, select Use a computer name or IP address to connect to the published server, and then type the resolvable computer name or IP address of the published server.

    Internal Publishing Details (2)

    Path (optional)

    Type the path for your Web site.

    Forward the original host header instead of the actual one specified in the Internal site name field on the previous page

    Select this check box only if your Web site has specific features that require the original host header that Forefront TMG receives from the client.

    Public Name Details

    Accept requests for

    Select This domain name (type below).

    Public name

    Type the public fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or IP address that external users will use to access the published Web site.

    Select Web Listener

    Web Listener

    In the drop-down list, select the Web listener that you created in step 4. You can then click Edit to modify the properties of the Web listener selected.

    Authentication Delegation

    Select the method used by Forefront TMG to authenticate to the published Web server

    Select No delegation, and client cannot authenticate directly.

    User Sets

    This rule applies to requests from the following user sets

    Do not change the default option, All Users.

    Malware Protection

    Select Enable malware inspection for this rule.

    Completing the New Web Publishing Rule Wizard

    Review the settings, and then click Finish.

  8. In the details pane, click Apply, and then click OK.

    9. Note

    • The Web listener can also be configured for HTTP authentication or for forms-based authentication. However, client authentication will then be performed over HTTP without encryption. Because user credentials will be transmitted in plain text, such configurations are considered insecure and are disabled by default. To enable such a configuration, open the properties of the Web listener. On the Authentication tab, click Advanced, and then select the Allow client authentication over HTTP check box. For best security practices, use such a configuration only if you have an SSL accelerator in front of the Forefront TMG computer.

    • Forefront TMG treats a farm of servers behind a load-balancing device as a single server. Although this option is supported for publishing a load-balanced farm, we recommend that you use the integrated load-balancing support that is provided by a server farm created in Forefront TMG rather than a load-balancing device. Forefront TMG publishing for server farms provides improved client affinity, which can be configured to operate by using a cookie, rather than depending on the client IP address. This is a distinct advantage in a situation where a device between the load-balancing device and Forefront TMG, such as a NAT device, hides the client IP address.

    • Web publishing rules match incoming client requests to the appropriate Web site on the Web server. 

    • You can create Web publishing rules that deny traffic, to block incoming traffic that matches the rule conditions.

    • Forefront TMG does not treat paths as case-sensitive. For example, if your Web server includes both foldera and folderA, and you publish a path to one of the folders, both folders will be published.

    • For more information about other settings in Web publishing rules, see Planning for publishing.

    Concepts

    Publishing Web servers over HTTP