how typically reverse proxy

Question

I would like to enquire how typically a reverse proxy works.

I'm in a huge company and our corporate has set up a public facing webserver 123.123.123.123/webproject1

however, we want to do a reverse proxy of www.company.com/promotion (which is another hosted corporate webserver) to destination 123.123.123.123/webproject1.

Typically, what set up configuration should the public facing webserver 123.123.123.123/webproject1 needs to do?

Because the webserver with the reverse proxy server has already configured to destination 123.123.123.123/webproject1 , but it is still not working, when entered www.company.com/webproject1 it appears to be a 404 error..

What could be the possible causes?

Answer 1

Basically, what happens in a "normal" reverse proxy situation, depending on what reverse proxy software you are using is as follows.

1. DNS for www.mycompany.com is set to the the IP address or CNAME of the reverse proxy server. This may in effect be the actual web server, then using something like proxypass and proxypass reverse to send it to the appropriate backend.

2. The Client HTTP request is received by the reverse proxy server, depending on any ACLS (access lists) that may be applied it is then forwarded to the actual web server(s) Access lists can take several forms but there may not actually be any if there is only one service being proxied.

3. Webserver receives forwarded client request which it handles (possibly passing to application server such as coldfusion or similar) then sends the "completed" HTTP session back to the reverse proxy, which then relays it on to the requesting client.

If you could send on the software that you are using, servers, proxying software etc then it would be easier to advise.