Achieving an SSL connection by configuring IIS as a Reverse Proxy

Step-by-step guide

This guide will instruct setting up a Reverse Proxy using Microsoft IIS

1. Install Application Request Routing (ARR) from the Microsoft Web Platform Installer

2. Using the Default Web Site or another Web Site in IIS configure the URL Rewrite option by adding a new Rule for Reverse Proxy.  Note that when you select this you may be prompted to enable the Application Request Routing that you installed earlier.  Respond Yes to this, but note there are security implications in doing so.

3. Configure the rule with the internal address of the server and port where the API is running (screenshot contains IIS running on the Greentree server).  Do NOT include the http prefix here.  You will want the Enable SSL Offloading tick box to be checked, this makes the external https translate to http, which is the whole reason were are going through this process.  There is no need to create outbound rules as the API never returns its address, so there is no need to setup a rule for this.

Troubleshooting

Receiving HTTP Error 404.11

This error indicates that the URL is double escaped, and will typically occur when there in an embedded "+" in the URL.  By default IIS7 has a filter in place to block double escaped URL's with can be disabled by changing the web.config.