We have a Java/Jetty server. The servlets on this server are called by some of our internal applications over http.
I have been asked to create a webapp /website which will use many of these servlets / api.
However this is an external customer facing website and needs to be served over https / ssl. The servelet urls look like
http://internalServer:9999?parameters.
Now my webapp is ready and has been deployed on Apache on Debian. Everything works fine but as soon as I enable
https/ssl the backend calls do not go through. On chrome I get "Mixed content. Page was loaded on https but is requestig resource over http...". On Safari I get -could not load resource due to access control checks.
I understand the reasons for these errors but I would like to know ways to solve this.
I have full control over apache server and website code.
I have very limited control over internal jetty server and no control over servelt code.(don't want to mess with existing apps).
Is there something I can do just with apache configuration? can I use it as a reverse proxy for the Jetty(http) server?
Thanks for your help.
"Mixed content. Page was loaded on https but is requestig resource over http..."
That error message means your HTML has resources that are being requested over http://... specifically.
You'll need to fix your HTML (and any references in javascript and css) that request resources (or references resources) to also use https://....
If you try to call an http service from an https site you will have Mixed content error.
You can avoid that error using apache2 proxy settings inside your example.org.conf
You can find it inside the folder /apache2/sites-enabled
Add some code:
<VirtualHost *:443>
...
ProxyPass /service1 http://internalServer:9999
ProxyPassReverse /service1 http://internalServer:9999
</VirtuaHost>
From your https site you have to fetch the url
https://example.org/service1`
to reach the service.
In that way you can call your services http from a https site.
I have a website (userbob.com) that normally serves all pages as https. However, I am trying to have one subdirectory (userbob.com/tools/) always serve content as http. Currently, it seems like Chrome's HSTS feature (which I don't understand how it works) is forcing my site's pages to load over https. I can go to chrome://net-internals/#hsts and delete my domain from Chrome's HSTS set, and the next query will work as I want without redirecting to an https version. However, if I try to load the page a second time, it ends up redirecting again. The only way I can get it to work is if I go to chrome://net-internals/#hsts and delete my domain from Chrome's HSTS set after each request. How do I let browsers know that I want all my pages from userbob.com/tools/ to load as http? My site uses an apache/tomcat web server.
(Just FYI, the reason I want the pages in the tools directory to serve pages over http instead of https is because some of them are meant to iframe http pages. If I try to iframe an http page from an https page I end up getting mixed-content errors.)
HTTP Strict Transport Security (or HSTS) is a setting your site can send to browsers which says "I only want to use HTTPS on my site - if someone tries to go to a HTTP link, automatically upgrade them to HTTPS before you send the request". It basically won't allow you to send any HTTP traffic, either accidentally or intentionally.
This is a security feature. HTTP traffic can be intercepted, read, altered and redirected to other domains. HTTPS-only websites should redirect HTTP traffic to HTTPS, but there are various security issues/attacks if any requests are still initially sent over HTTP so HSTS prevents this.
The way HSTS works is that your website sends a HTTP Header Strict-Transport-Security with a value of, for example, max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains on your HTTPS requests. The browser caches this and activates HSTS for 31536000 seconds (1 year), in this example. You can see this HTTP Header in your browsers web developer tools or by using a site like https://securityheaders.io . By using the chrome://net-internals/#hsts site you are able to clear that cache and allow HTTP traffic again. However as soon as you visit the site over HTTPS it will send the Header again and the browser will revert back to HTTPS-only.
So to permanently remove this setting you need to stop sending that Strict-Transport-Security Header. Find this in your Apache/Tomcat server and turn it off. Or better yet change it to max-age=0; includeSubDomains for a while first (which tells the browser to clear the cache after 0 seconds and so turns it off without having to visit chrome://net-internals/#hsts, as long as you visit the site over HTTPS to pick up this Header, and then remove the Header completely later.
Once you turn off HSTS you can revert back to having some pages on HTTPS and some on HTTP with standard redirects.
However it would be remiss of me to not warn you against going back to HTTP. HTTPS is the new standard and there is a general push to encourage all sites to move to HTTPS and penalise those that do not. Read his post for more information:
https://www.troyhunt.com/life-is-about-to-get-harder-for-websites-without-https/
While you are correct that you cannot frame HTTP content on a HTTPS page, you should consider if there is another way to address this problem. A single HTTP page on your site can cause security problems like leaking cookies (if they are not set up correctly). Plus frames are horrible and shouldn't be used anymore :-)
You can use rewrite rules to redirect https requests to http inside of subdirectory. Create an .htaccess file inside tools directory and add the following content:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
RewriteRule (.*) http://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
Make sure that apache mod_rewrite is enabled.
Basically any HTTP 301 response from an HTTPS request indicating a target redirect to HTTP should never be honored at all by any browser, those servers doing that are clearly violating basic security, or are severaly compromized.
However a 301 reply to an HTTPS request can still redirect to another HTTPS target (including on another domain, provided that other CORS requirements are met).
If you navigate an HTTPS link (or a javascript event handler) and the browser starts loading that HTTPS target which replies with 301 redirect to HTTP, the behavior of the browser should be like if it was a 500 server error, or a connection failure (DNS name not resolved, server not responding timeout).
Such server-side redirect are clearly invalid. And website admins should never do that ! If they want to close a service and inform HTTPS users that the service is hosted elsewhere and no longer secure, they MUST return a valid HTTPS response page with NO redirect at all, and this should really be a 4xx error page (most probably 404 PAGE NOT FOUND) and they should not redirect to another HTTPS service (e.g. a third-party hosted search engine or parking page) which does not respect CORS requirements, or sends false media-types (it is acceptable to not honor the requested language and display that page in another language).
Browsers that implement HSTS are perfectly correct and going to the right direction. But I really think that CORS specifications are a mess, just tweaked to still allow advertizing network to host and control themselves the ads they broadcast to other websites.
I strongly think that serious websites that still want to display ads (or any tracker for audience measurement) for valid reasons can host these ads/trackers themselves, on their own domain and in the same protocol: servers can still get themselves the ads content they want to broadcast by downloading/refreshing these ads themselves and maintaining their own local cache. They can track their audience themselves by collecting the data they need and want and filtering it on their own server if they want this data to be analysed by a third party: websites will have to seriously implement thelselves the privacy requirements.
I hate now those too many websites that, when visited, are being tracked by dozens of third parties, including very intrusive ones like Facebook and most advertizing networks, plus many very weak third party services that have very poor quality/security and send very bad content they never control (including fake ads, fake news, promoting illegal activities, illegal businesses, invalid age rating...).
Let's return to the origin of the web: one site, one domain, one third party. This does not mean that they cannot link to other third party sites, but these must done only with an explicit user action (tapping or clicking), and visitors MUST be able to kn ow wherre this will go to, or which content will be displayed.
This is even possible for inserting videos (e.g. Youtube) in news articles: the news website can host themselves a cache of static images for the frame and icons for the "play" button: when users click that icon, it will start activating the third party video, and in that case the thirf party will interact directly with that user and can collect other data. But the unactivated contents will be tracked only by the origin website, under their own published policy.
In my local development environment I use apache server. What worked for me was :
Open you config file in sites-availabe/yoursite.conf. then add the following line inside your virtualhost:
Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=0". Restart your server.
URL in question: https://newyorkliquorgiftshop.com/admin/
When you open the above page, you can see in the console that there are lots of error messages saying "...was loaded over HTTPS, but requested an insecure stylesheet.."
This website was working well until all of a sudden this problem shows up. I am not very familiar with https, but I have contacted with Godaddy and the SSL certificate is valid, and there is no obvious problem with "https://newyorkliquorgiftshop.com". And I am stuck here, I've some experiences with HTTPS website before, if the URL of website's homepage is "https", then every resources it loads is via "https" too. I don't know why my website behave differently and I don't know where to start to solve the problem? Any hint is appreciated especially articles about HTTPS that is related to my problem.(I have done a brief research regarding HTTPS but most of the articles I found are about the basic concepts.)
If you have access to the code (not sure what you built the website using), try using https instead of http for the URL's you use to load your style sheets and script files.
For example one of the errors is
Mixed Content: The page at 'https://newyorkliquorgiftshop.com/admin/' was loaded over HTTPS, but requested an insecure script 'http://www.newyorkliquorgiftshop.com/admin/view/javascript/common.js'. This request has been blocked; the content must be served over HTTPS.
You are requesting the .js file using HTTP, try using HTTPS like so:
https://www.newyorkliquorgiftshop.com/admin/view/javascript/common.js
Basically if somebody is already on an HTTPS page, I don't want them to be capable of being redirected to/accidentally clicking an HTTP one (on the same site at least). It seems to me like you would use the referer as a RewriteCond to accomplish this, except for the fact that it is apparently browser policy not to send referers when going from HTTPS pages to HTTP ones. So if a user loads an HTTP page, how can I detect if they came from an HTTPS one and make sure they are redirected to the secure version of the page they are trying to access?
Unfortunately the software we are using has many hardcoded HTTP links so it is necessary to use some sort of redirection.
I am developing a Rails application that uses SSL connection. I am currently using third party resources that are js and css files for implementing a map (OpenStreetMap) . I have already tried to import these resources (js and css) into my application, but the javascript code tries to access an external WMS via HTTP.
The problem is that Google Chrome is blocking access to third-party resources from HTTP when the application is in HTTPS.
So I disabled SSL on a certain pages of the application and tried to force the HTTP or HTTPS the way I desire.
Following this blog: http://www.simonecarletti.com/blog/2011/05/configuring-rails-3-https-ssl/ and it works.
But when I force the HTTP protocol to the page where these resources will be used using Google Chrome, it forces HTTPS connection causing infinite loop.
If I clear the Chrome cache (that have already accessed the same page with HTTPS) in order access it via HTTP it works. But if I have accessed a HTTPS page and try to access via HTTP, Chrome forces the HTTPS connection resulting in an infinite loop.
The question is: Is there something I can set in the request that causes Chrome to accept the connection?
Regards
I've been doing some research on this, and it turns out that turning on force_ssl = true on Rails 3 causes the app to send an HSTS header. There's a bit of information about it here: How to disable HTTP Strict Transport Security?
Essentially, the HSTS header tells Chrome (and Firefox) to access your site only through HTTPS for a specific amount of time.
So... the answer I have for you now is that you can clear your own HSTS setting by going to about:net-internals within your Chrome browser and removing the HSTS state.
I think the answers here can help you: Rails: activating SSL support gets Chrome confused