Hiding SDM Server Hostname When Using Web Director and Multiple Web Servers

Products

• CA Service Management - Service Desk Manager
• CA Service Desk Manager
• ServiceDesk

Issue/Introduction

In this scenario, the main concern with configuring SDM  AA is to keep the hostnames of the SDM servers hidden.  This is accomplished with the F5 Load Balancer's URL Masking feature, so when the user enters F5's FQDN URL, what they see is F5's FQDN URL plus /CAisd/pdmweb.exe, regardless of which SDM server is actually being accessed.

When using a single web engine on each of the SDM servers, this configuration is accomplished by configuring F5 to redirect under the covers to "<hostname>:<port>" for one of the two SDM servers.  That server's index.jsp then adds "/CAisd/pdmweb.exe" and the SDM login page comes up, while in the browser address bar what the user sees is "<f5's fqdn>/CAisd/pdmweb.exe"

However, if the SDM configuration must be changed to include a web director and 2 or more web engines on each of the SDM servers, the configuration does not work as expected.  The process of going from F5's FQDN URL to a web engine is now as follows:

1. The user enters F5's FQDN URL
2. F5 chooses one of the two SDM servers, and redirects to the web director on that SDM server
3. the web director then redirects to one of the web engines.
4. In the browser's address bar what the user sees is "<sdm server's hostname>:<port>/CAisd/<web engine name>.exe" instead of "<F5's FQDN>/CAisd/<web engine name>.exe"

Is it possible to maintain F5's URL-masking feature so that the SDM hostnames are hidden while implementing a configuration with a web director and multiple web engines?

Environment

Service Desk Manager 17.x

Cause

What is happening here is two levels of redirection.  F5 redirects to the Web Director which then redirects to one of the two the Web Engine on that SDM server.

URL Masking is no longer working because, while F5 has the capability of URL masking, once the Web Director performs its second redirection, the URL masking is lost.  The SDM Web Director does not have the capability of URL masking like F5 does.

Resolution

A recommended solution is to bypass the Web Director (and the index.jsp) and allow all redirection to be done from F5.  So, for example, instead of having:

Node1 => <SDMserver1>:<port>
Node2 => <SDMserver2>:<port>

you would now have:

Node1 => <SDMserver1>:<port>/CAisd/<web engine 1>.exe
Node2 => <SDMserver1>:<port>/CAisd/<web engine 2>.exe
Node3 => <SDMserver2>:<port>/CAisd/<web engine 3>.exe
Node4 => <SDMserver2>:<port>/CAisd/<web engine 4>.exe

With this scheme, the URL masking would be preserved.

Here is the documentation location for setting up F5 to work with Service Desk.  How to Configure the F5 Load Balancer for CA Service Desk Manager