Escaper character in proxyrules.xml

Products

• CA Single Sign On Agents (SiteMinder)

Issue/Introduction

 

When running a CA Access Gateway (SPS), setting the proxyrules.xml
with this config :

  <nete:forward>https://www.abc.com:8443/Path/page.jsp?x1=X&y1=Y$1</nete:forward>

brings an issue in CA Access Gateway (SPS), as it reports error :

  SEVERE: Exception starting filter [__service_dispatcher]
  javax.servlet.ServletException: Failed to initialize proxy rule service
        at com.netegrity.proxy.service.SmProxyRules.init(Unknown Source)

  Caused by: java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: Proxy rule xml
  file /opt/CA/secure-proxy/proxy-engine/conf/proxyrules.xml not loaded!

 

Resolution

 

The xml standard doesn't allow the use of & character as stated here :

  2.4 Character Data and Markup

    The ampersand character (&) and the left angle bracket (<) must not
    appear in their literal form, except when used as markup delimiters,
    or within a comment, a processing instruction, or a CDATA section.

  https://www.w3.org/TR/xml/#syntax

In light of this, one might be able to pass it by setting the
following character :

   &

instead of 

   &

as x1=X&amp;y1=Y