Faking HTTPS on IIS 6

Question

I'm looking for a way to tell IIS 6 that even though a request came by http, it can be considered as https.

The HTTPS is managed before the request arrive on applications server. With Tomcat, we use the RemoteIpValve with the http header X-Forwarded-Proto to tell Tomcat if the connection is secure, or not.

Is there a way to do it in IIS? Could an Isapi Filter be a solution?

Thank you for all hints.

[EDIT :] To be more precise : The architecture is as follow, for our tomcat :

    USER
      |
     LoadBalancer (KeepAlived)
     |  |
     |  '- Apache (SSL)
     |
     HaProxy
     |
     |
     Tomcat

When a user makes an https Request on the tomcat, the request passes through the apache where the https is decoded(Apache adds the X-Forwarded-Proto: https header). Then the request is redirected toward Tomcat through HaProxy(Http LoadBalancer).

I hope it is a little more clear.

PS: Please excuse my english, I don't practice it enough.

Answer 1

As an example, for IIS7, Application Request Routing (ARR) + ARR Helper does this by adding x-headers like you're doing with Tomcat.

You would need an ISAPI Filter to rewrite the x-header back to the original header values on the IIS6 box. Microsoft doesn't have an IIS6 solution for rewriting the header, but you could see if the BigIP client will do it for you, or else write your own.

IIS7 has native solutions already so if you need to choose between developing your own ISAPI Filter (not an easy task) or upgrading, this may be an opportunity to consider upgrading your environment.