Reverse proxy portlet with rule-based, instance level configuration

• US 7,840,707 B2
• Filed: 08/18/2004
• Issued: 11/23/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/18/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: LinkedIn Corporation (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Jerrard-Dunne, Stanley Kieran
• Primary Examiner(s): Follansbee; John
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hussain; Imad
• Application Number:
  US10/920,914
• Publication Number:
  US 20060041637A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,288 Days
• Field of Search: 370/395.54, 370/468, 707/10, 709/219, 709/225, 709/250, 715/207, 715/234, 715/241, 715/733, 715/742, 717/106, 717/118, 717/168
• US Class Current: 709/246
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/567 Integrating service provisioning from a plurality of service providers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5683 Storage of data provided by user terminals, i.e. reverse caching

Abstract

A portal server having a reverse proxy mechanism for proxying one or more Web applications on a backend server in response to a request for Web content from a user. The reverse proxy mechanism includes a portlet, a set of configuration rules, and a rewriting mechanism. The rewriting mechanism is configured to forward a user request for Web content to a Web application on the backend server, receive a response from the Web application, and rewrite the received response in accordance with the configuration rules. The portlet is configured to produce a content fragment for a portal page from the rewritten response. The configuration rules include rules for rewriting any resource addresses, such as URLs, appearing in the received response from the Web application to point to the portal server rather than to the backend server.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method of providing a portal page from a portal server to a client system, the portal server and the client system each including at least one processor, the portal page including Web content from an application on a Web server, the method comprising the steps of:

providing a reverse proxy mechanism including a portlet, a set of configuration rules shared by each of a plurality of user selectable instances of the portlet on the portal server, and a rewriting mechanism on the portal server;

receiving by the portal server a client request targeting the portlet;

forwarding data relating to the request to the portlet;

forwarding data relating to the request to a Web application on a Web server including at least one processor;

receiving a response from the Web server;

rewriting the response in accordance with the configuration rules such that resource addresses contained within the response are rewritten to refer to the portal server rather than the Web server, wherein the rewriting includes identifying resource addresses in requests for graphics and resource addresses in requests for full pages, rewriting the resource addresses in the requests for graphics with references to the rewriting mechanism on the portal server, and rewriting the resource addresses in the requests for full pages with references to the portlet on the portal server;

the portlet producing a content fragment for a portal page from the rewritten response;

packaging the content fragment into a portlet window, wherein the packaging includes adding control user interface objects to the content fragment within the portlet window outside the content fragment, the control user interface objects enabling a user to select which of the user selectable instances of the portlet is to be displayed within the portlet window; and

aggregating the portlet window into a portal page.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the configuration rules identify a plurality of target character patterns and associated output models, and wherein the rewriting step further comprises:

searching the response from the Web server for a character string corresponding correctly to any of the target character patterns and rewriting any matched character strings in the response in accordance with the output model associated with the matched character pattern.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the client request includes an indication of one or more user preferences and the portlet produces a content fragment in accordance with these user preferences.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein the portal page comprises portlet windows containing content fragments from a plurality of portlets, the method further comprising the step of aggregating the portlet windows containing content fragments from each of the portlets into the portal page.

5. A computer-implemented method for reverse proxying a Web application on a Web server including at least one processor, the method comprising the steps of:

providing on a portal server a reverse proxy mechanism comprising a portlet, a set of configuration rules shared by each of a plurality of user selectable instances of said portlet on said portal server, and a rewriting mechanism, wherein the portal server includes at least one processor;

receiving at the portal server a response from the Web server, the response including Web content requested by a client system including at least one processor;

rewriting the response in accordance with the configuration rules such that resource addresses contained within the response are rewritten to refer to the portal server rather than the Web server, wherein the rewriting includes identifying resource addresses in requests for graphics and resource addresses in requests for full pages, rewriting the resource addresses in the requests for graphics with references to the rewriting mechanism on the portal server, and rewriting the resource addresses in the requests for full pages with references to the portlet on the portal server;

the portlet producing a content fragment from the rewritten response;

packaging the content fragment into a portlet window, wherein the packaging includes adding control user interface objects to the content fragment within the portlet window outside the content fragment, the control user interface objects enabling a user to select which of the user selectable instances of the portlet is to be displayed within the portlet window; and

aggregating the portlet window into a portal page.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the configuration rules identify a plurality of target character patterns and associated output models and the step of rewriting comprises searching the response from the Web server for character strings corresponding correctly to any of the target character patterns and rewriting any matched character strings in the response in accordance with the output model associated with the matched character pattern.

7. The method of claim 5 further comprising intercepting by the portlet a user request for Web content from a Web application and forwarding the request to the Web application.

8. A reverse proxy mechanism for proxying, within a portal server computer system including at least one processor communicably coupled to a memory, one or more Web applications running on a Web server computer system, in response to a request for Web content from a client computer system, the reverse proxy mechanism within the portal server computer system comprising:

a portlet;

a set of configuration rules shared by each of a plurality of user selectable instances of said portlet on said portal server;

a rewriting mechanism, said rewriting mechanism comprising program code for execution on said processor and stored in said memory, said rewriting mechanism configured to

forward data, relating to a client request for Web content, to a Web application on the Web server,

receive a response from the Web application,

rewrite the received response in accordance with the configuration rules, such that resource addresses contained within the response are rewritten to refer to the portal server rather than the Web server, and the portlet being configured to produce a content fragment; and

program code configured to

package the content fragment into a portlet window, wherein the packaging includes adding control user interface objects to the content fragment within the portlet window outside the content fragment, the control user interface objects enabling a user to select which of the user selectable instances of the portlet is to be displayed within the portlet window, and

aggregate the portlet window into a portal page.

9. A reverse proxy mechanism according to claim 8, wherein the configuration rules identify a plurality of target character patterns and associated output models, and the rewriting mechanism searches the response from the Web server for character strings corresponding correctly to any of the target character patterns and rewrites any matched character strings in the response in accordance with the output model associated with the matched character pattern.

10. A reverse proxy mechanism according to claim 8, wherein the client request includes an indication of one or more user preferences and the portlet is operable to render a content fragment from a rewritten response in accordance with these user preferences.

11. A reverse proxy mechanism according to claim 8, wherein the configuration rules also include rules for rewriting the response from the Web server to manipulate formatting characteristics of the Web content.

12. A reverse proxy mechanism according to claim 8, in which the rewriting mechanism is configured to rewrite resource addresses having the attribute ‘

href’

to refer to the portlet and resource addresses having the attribute ‘

src’

to refer to the rewriting mechanism.

13. A reverse proxy mechanism according to claim 8 wherein the rewriting mechanism is a servlet.

14. A reverse proxy mechanism according to claim 8 configured to respond to a client request for Web content from a Web application which uses a frameset, by creating an inline frame as a content fragment including a link to the rewriting mechanism.

15. A reverse proxy mechanism according to claim 14, configured to rewrite a response from the Web server to a client request to fill an inline frame, such that any resource addresses in the response refer to the rewriting mechanism rather than the Web server.

16. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium, the computer readable storage medium having stored thereon program code for providing a portal page from a portal server to a client system, the portal page including Web content from an application on a Web server, the program code stored on the computer readable storage medium comprising:

program code for providing a reverse proxy mechanism including a portlet, a set of configuration rules shared by each of a plurality of user selectable instances of said portlet on said portal server, and a rewriting mechanism on the portal server;

program code for receiving by the portal server a client request targeting the portlet;

program code for forwarding data relating to the request to the portlet;

program code for forwarding data relating to the request to a Web application on a Web server;

program code for receiving a response from the Web server;

program code for rewriting the response in accordance with the configuration rules such that resource addresses contained within the response are rewritten to refer to the portal server rather than the Web server, wherein the rewriting includes identifying resource addresses in requests for graphics and resource addresses in requests for full pages, rewriting the resource addresses in the requests for graphics with references to the rewriting mechanism on the portal server, and rewriting the resource addresses in the requests for full pages with references to the portlet on the portal server;

program code for, by the portlet, producing a content fragment for a portal page from the rewritten response;

program code for packaging the content fragment into a portlet window, wherein the packaging includes adding control user interface objects to the content fragment within the portlet window outside the content fragment, the control user interface objects enabling a user to select which of the user selectable instances of the portlet is to be displayed within the portlet window; and

program code for aggregating the portlet window into the portal page.

17. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium according to claim 16, wherein the configuration rules identify a plurality of target character patterns and associated output models, and wherein the program code for rewriting step further comprises:

program code for searching the response from the Web server for a character string corresponding correctly to any of the target character patterns and rewriting any matched character strings in the response in accordance with the output model associated with the matched character pattern.

18. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium according to claim 16, wherein the client request includes an indication of one or more user preferences and the portlet produces a content fragment in accordance with these user preferences.

19. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium according to claim 16, further comprising:

program code for, by the portal server computer system, packaging the content fragment into a portlet window.

20. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium according to claim 16, wherein the portal page comprises content fragments from a plurality of portlets, and further comprising program code for aggregating the content fragments from each of the portlets into the portal page.

21. A reverse proxy mechanism for proxying, within a portal server computer system including at least one processor communicably coupled to a memory, one or more Web applications running on a Web server computer system, in response to a request for Web content from a client computer system, the reverse proxy mechanism within the portal server computer system comprising:

a portlet;

a set of configuration rules shared by each of a plurality of user selectable instances of said portlet on said portal server; and

a rewriting means, said rewriting means comprising program code for execution on said processor and stored in said memory, said rewriting means configured to

forward data, relating to a client request for Web content, to a Web application on the Web server,

receive a response from the Web application, and

rewrite the received response in accordance with the configuration rules, such that resource addresses contained within the response are rewritten to refer to the portal server rather than the Web server by rewriting resource addresses having the attribute ‘

href’

to refer to the portlet and resource addresses having the attribute ‘

src’

to refer to the rewriting mechanism, and the portlet being configured to produce a content fragment for a portlet window within a portal page from the rewritten response, the portlet window further including control user interface objects enabling a user to select which of the user selectable instances of the portlet is to be displayed.

22. The reverse proxy mechanism of claim 21, further comprising:

wherein the configuration rules identify a plurality of target character patterns and associated output models, and the rewriting mechanism searches the response from the Web server for character strings corresponding correctly to any of the target character patterns and rewrites any matched character strings in the response in accordance with the output model associated with the matched character pattern;

wherein the client request includes an indication of one or more user preferences and the portlet is operable to render a content fragment from a rewritten response in accordance with these user preferences;

wherein the configuration rules also include rules for rewriting the response from the Web server to manipulate formatting characteristics of the Web content;

wherein the rewriting mechanism is a servlet; and

wherein the rewriting means is further configured to

respond to a client request for Web content from a Web application which uses a frameset, by creating an inline frame as a content fragment including a link to the rewriting mechanism, and

rewrite a response from the Web server to a client request to fill an inline frame, such that any resource addresses in the response refer to the rewriting mechanism rather than the Web server.