Unnecessary HSTS header over HTTP on Windows Server 2016 IIS 10 - iis

I am attempting to enforce hsts on my Windows Server 2016 IIS 10 v14. I added the following code to my web.config:
<system.webServer>
<rewrite>
<rules>
<rule name="HTTP to HTTPS redirect" stopProcessing="true">
<match url="(.*)" />
<conditions>
<add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="off" ignoreCase="true" />
</conditions>
<action type="Redirect" url="https://{HTTP_HOST}/{R:1}" redirectType="Permanent" />
</rule>
</rules>
<outboundRules>
<rule name="Add Strict-Transport-Security when HTTPS" enabled="true">
<match serverVariable="RESPONSE_Strict_Transport_Security" pattern=".*" />
<conditions>
<add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="on" ignoreCase="true" />
</conditions>
<action type="Rewrite" value="max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload"/>
</rule>
</outboundRules>
</rewrite>
</system.webServer>
This works on most my web sites without issues, however, on two of the sites, I am getting a warning:
Warning: Unnecessary HSTS header over HTTP
The HTTP page at http://sandairephotography.com sends an HSTS header. This has no effect over HTTP, and should be removed.
How do I remove this behavior?

In my case, I followed a pre-windows server 2019 example that directed me to implement the HSTS (Strict Transport Security) via my Web sites individual web.config, as posted below. As it happens, the two Web sites that generated the Warning was already setup to use the Strict Transport Security, locally via the IIS Manager HTTP Response Header, which was the source of the Header Warning. Once I removed the entry and restarted the Web Site, the warning disappeared. Apparently, I am using the nopCommerce Web Platform (E-Commerce Template) with a theme that added the http header response entry.
I plan to post a question on the nopCommerce forum as well to determine if this is a normal behavior.

Related

HSTS Displays Disabled even though the header is present

My company is using Tenable to identify security vulnerabilities. Missing HSTS was identified recently. Our server is using IIS 10.
I've added the HSTS header as outlined in multiple blogs, and questions here on SO.
My root web.config looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
<appSettings>
<add key="Environment" value="Local" />
</appSettings>
<system.webServer>
<rewrite>
<rules>
<rule name="HTTP to HTTPS redirect global" stopProcessing="true" >
<match url="(.*)" />
<conditions>
<add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="off" ignoreCase="true" />
</conditions>
<action type="Redirect" url="https://{HTTP_HOST}/{R:1}"
redirectType="Permanent" />
</rule>
</rules>
<outboundRules>
<rule name="Add Strict-Transport-Security when HTTPS" enabled="true">
<match serverVariable="RESPONSE_Strict_Transport_Security"
pattern=".*" />
<conditions>
<add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="on" ignoreCase="true" />
</conditions>
<action type="Rewrite" value="max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload" />
</rule>
</outboundRules>
</rewrite>
</system.webServer>
</configuration>
Problem: After the changes have been applied, Tenable is still showing a vulnerability. Further, upon inspecting a site in FireFox's dev tools, I can see the header is present, however the security tab indicates that HSTS is disabled.
Question: How do I make this change show up for Firefox and Tenable?
It could also be related to preload tag, that you mentioned in the HSTS header. Are you certain that your site is already added in the preload list (maintained by google/chrome)
If you are deploying your site as sub-domain, then you may also need to add HSTS to parent domain (which is not a sub-domain) and submit for preload.
Once done you can verify and look for more details at https://hstspreload.org/

HTTP to HTTPS redirect issue with iis8.5 and Websphere7

We have applications hosted on WebSphere 7.0 and Jboss EAP7 which is behind IIS 8.5 Web server, we enabled ssl for iis.
our requirement is whenever users access with http it has to be redirected to https, to achieve this we configured rewrite2 module in iis below inbound rule
<rules>
<rule name="http to https" enabled="false" stopProcessing="true">
<match url="(.*)" />
<conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAny">
<add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="^OFF$" />
</conditions>
<action type="Redirect" url="https://{HTTP_HOST}{REQUEST_URI}" redirectType="SeeOther" />
</rule>
issue :- when i access http://www.example.com/login it redirects to https://www.example.com/sePlugins/iisWASPlugin_http.dll and gives 404 Status code. (only applications hosted websphere)
The problem is that we have a ISAPI Websphere plugin to handle the requests and for some reason URL is getting changed by IIS.
redirect rule works fine for Applications hosted on J BOSS.
Not sure what happened to my registration process but I posted the original answer so reposting again after registering.
I found that specifying {CACHE_URL} in the Redirect Url instead of https://{HTTP_HOST}{REQUEST_URI} worked. so url="{CACHE_URL}"
This is how my rule is defined and it seems to work well.
<rule name="HTTP to HTTPS redirect" stopProcessing="true">
<match url="(.*)" />
<conditions>
<add input="{HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO}" pattern="^http$" />
</conditions>
<action type="Redirect" url="{CACHE_URL}" />
</rule>
I found that specifying {CACHE_URL} in the Redirect Url instead of https://{HTTP_HOST}{REQUEST_URI} worked. so url="{CACHE_URL}"

Domain Redirect from domain.com/pathA to domainA.com

I have an IIS web server that is setup to handle all requests to *.myapp.com. We also have clients that have setup a custom domain, e.g. custom.customer.com as a CNAME To customer.myapp.com
I have a requirement to handle the following:
Requests to custom.customer.com/pathA will need to be redirected to a.internal-app.com
Requests to custom.customer.com/pathB will need to be redirected to b.internal-app.com
The problem I have right now is that this can't be done on the DNS level (as it involves paths). Also, whatever the "redirect" is I want the client to see his custom domain at all times. Like he should never see internal-app.com or myapp.com.
Is this possible in any way?
It is possible with reverse proxy.
1) You need to install URL Rewrite and ARR module for IIS
2) Enable ARR. On the Application Request Routing page, select Enable proxy
3) Create rewrite rule
<rewrite>
<rules>
<rule name="rewrite custom.customer.com/patha" stopProcessing="true">
<match url="patha" />
<conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll">
<add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="^custom.customer.com$" ignoreCase="true" />
</conditions>
<action type="Rewrite" url="http://a.internal-app.com/" />
</rule>
<rule name="rewrite custom.customer.com/pathB" stopProcessing="true">
<match url="pathb" />
<conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll">
<add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="^custom.customer.com$" ignoreCase="true" />
</conditions>
<action type="Rewrite" url="http://b.internal-app.com/" />
</rule>
</rules>
</rewrite>
P.S. You might have problem with your resources(images,styles,css,js). Because your html might contains absolute paths to resources
You can check this post, when author is creating outbound rule for fixing relative urls https://blogs.iis.net/carlosag/setting-up-a-reverse-proxy-using-iis-url-rewrite-and-arr

Do I need anything besides code written in web.config to redirect website hosted on azure to https

I have a website that I host on azure. I recently bought an SSL and configured it. Now users can visit my site by typing in either http://example.com or https://example.com.
What I want is for users who type in the former to be automatically redirected to the latter while also keeping anything after the .com
So if a user types in http://example.com/about they will be redirected instead to https://example.com/about.
After some reading, I've come across this code that seems to do what I want
<system.webServer>
<rewrite>
<rules>
<rule name=”Redirect to https”>
<match url=”(.*)”/>
<conditions>
<add input=”{HTTPS}” pattern=”Off”/>
<add input=”{REQUEST_METHOD}” pattern=”^get$|^head$” />
</conditions>
<action type=”Redirect” url=”https://{HTTP_HOST}/{R:1}”/>
</rule>
</rules>
</rewrite>
</system.webServer>
But before I add this to my web.config file I have a few questions.
What is the IIS url rewrite module? IIS Rewrite and is it required to be installed on my azure hosted websites before I upload my new web.config file.
How can I also include removing www from my URL when a user enters it. For example if a user types in www.example.com they should be redirected to https://example.com instead. The reason that I want this is because in my google search console I've told google to display URLs as example.com rather then www.example.com
and finally, will this code do what I'm looking for? Is there a more professional way to achieve this? What are the benefits. I should note that my sites are asp .net web forms. I know MVC has routing options but that is not an option for me.
Edit : I don't think How to force HTTPS using a web.config file solves my issue because I don't even know if I can install the URL Rewrite module since I am not hosting IIS myself. Does azure give you access to the IIS settings? I am unfamiliar with azure details.
The Microsoft URL Rewrite Module for IIS enables IIS administrators to create powerful customized rules to map request URLs to friendly URLs that are easier for users to remember and easier for search engines to find.
This module is pre-installed for Azure Web App, as shown when inspect the applicationHost.config of the Azure Web App in Kudu.
Hence, you do not need to worry about the availability of the module for Azure Web App.
The URL Rewrite configuration to enforce HTTPS redirection for Azure web app is the simplest way to achieve what you intend. Your above configuration will apply
only if the request method is either HTTP GET or HTTP HEAD. The below configuration will not have such limitation.
<system.webServer>
<rewrite>
<rules>
<rule name="Force HTTPS Redirection" enabled="true" stopProcessing="true">
<match url="^$" ignoreCase="false"/>
<conditions>
<add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="^OFF$"/>
</conditions>
<action type="Redirect" url="https://{HTTP_HOST}/" redirectType="Permanent"/>
</rule>
</rules>
</rewrite>
</system.webServer>
I would add one last thing. Assuming you are running on Azure Web Apps, they have various probes to your site for warm up and initialization. You probably don't want these probes to also be redirected, otherwise, you may have some issues when you restart or use Azure's swaps feature for stuff like blue/green deployments. These probes would then be return with a 301/302 rather than actually hitting your site (and Azure doesn't actually follow the redirect)
More examples https://github.com/projectkudu/kudu/wiki/Xdt-transform-samples
<rule name="Redirect to non-WWW" stopProcessing="true">
<match url="(.*)" />
<conditions>
<add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="www.example.com$" />
<add input="{HTTP_USER_AGENT}" pattern="Initialization" negate="true" /> <!-- IIS Application Initialization Warmup -->
<add input="{HTTP_USER_AGENT}" pattern="SiteWarmup" negate="true" /> <!-- Azure WebApps Warmup Request -->
<add input="{HTTP_USER_AGENT}" pattern="AlwaysOn" negate="true" /> <!-- Azure WebApps AlwaysOn Probes -->
</conditions>
<action type="Redirect" redirectType="Permanent" url="https://example.com/{R:1}" />
</rule>
<!-- Redirect to HTTPS Version -->
<rule name="HTTP to HTTPS redirect" stopProcessing="true">
<match url="(.*)" />
<conditions>
<add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="off" ignoreCase="true" />
<add input="{HTTP_USER_AGENT}" pattern="Initialization" negate="true" />
<add input="{HTTP_USER_AGENT}" pattern="SiteWarmup" negate="true" />
<add input="{HTTP_USER_AGENT}" pattern="AlwaysOn" negate="true" />
</conditions>
<action type="Redirect" redirectType="Permanent" url="https://{HTTP_HOST}/{R:1}" />
</rule>

Azure web app redirect http to https

I use Azure cloud with web app and my server side written on nodejs.
When web app receive a http request I want to redirect the request to https
I found the solution.
I put that to my web.config file inside the rules tag
<rule name="Force HTTPS" enabled="true">
<match url="(.*)" ignoreCase="false" />
<conditions>
<add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="off" />
</conditions>
<action type="Redirect" url="https://{HTTP_HOST}/{R:1}" appendQueryString="false" redirectType="Permanent" />
</rule>
The problem is when I type in the browser "https://myURL.com" it redirect to main screen every thing ok,
but when I change https to http "http://myURL.com" it redirect to https://myURL.com/" and add to the url "bin/www" according that the url looks like that "http://myURL.com/bin/www", the response is: page doesn't find.
The question is how to redirect a clear url without added data to the url?
Part of my web.config file:
<rewrite>
<rules>
<!-- Do not interfere with requests for node-inspector debugging -->
<rule name="NodeInspector" patternSyntax="ECMAScript" stopProcessing="true">
<match url="^bin/www\/debug[\/]?" />
</rule>
<!-- First we consider whether the incoming URL matches a physical file in the /public folder -->
<rule name="StaticContent">
<action type="Rewrite" url="public{REQUEST_URI}" />
</rule>
<!-- All other URLs are mapped to the node.js site entry point -->
<rule name="DynamicContent">
<conditions>
<add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="True" />
</conditions>
<action type="Rewrite" url="bin/www" />
</rule>
<!-- Redirect all traffic to SSL -->
<rule name="Force HTTPS" enabled="true">
<match url="(.*)" ignoreCase="false" />
<conditions>
<add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="off" />
</conditions>
<action type="Redirect" url="https://{HTTP_HOST}/{R:1}" appendQueryString="false" redirectType="Permanent" />
</rule>
</rules>
</rewrite>
<!-- 'bin' directory has no special meaning in node.js and apps can be placed in it -->
<security>
<requestFiltering>
<hiddenSegments>
<remove segment="bin" />
</hiddenSegments>
</requestFiltering>
</security>
Thanks for answers, Michael.
Go to Azure portal and open the overview page of the (Web) App Service you wanna set to HTTPS only. In the sidebar, under the Settings section, there is an option for TLS/SSL Settings.
On clicking it, you will get an option on the screen to set your app's protocol to HTTPS only. There isn't any need to manually add separate ruleset for this.
This works on every tier of App Service Plan including the 'F'-Series (free subscription).
Note that, if you are adding any custom domain you also need to add corresponding SSL bindings, you can easily get them using LetsEncrypt or alike. If any of the custom hostnames for your app are missing SSL bindings, then:
When HTTPS Only is enabled clients accessing your app on those custom hostnames will see security warnings.
PS: I just saw that this question was asked about 3 years ago and that time maybe there was no direct option to do this. But even so, I'm posting my answer because on Google (as on February 2020) this question still ranks first among others regd. automatic HTTPS redirection in Azure.
As of November 2017, this is now a simple switch in the Azure Portal: "HTTPS Only", under Custom domains.
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/benjaminperkins/2017/11/30/how-to-make-an-azure-app-service-https-only/
It's also very easy in ARM:
“httpsOnly”: true
There is also a free and open source extension for this.
Go to your Web App settings sidebar, search for the "Extensions" tab and click on "Add".
Scroll down and find the extension Redirect HTTP to HTTPS by gregjhogan.
Accept the terms.
Restart the Web App for the actions to take effect immediately.
Done !
For further details on the implementation of this extension, check the source code on GitHub. The most important source file is the applicationhost.xdt.
Quote from GitHub (02-08-2017) (credits go to gregjhogan):
applicationhost.xdt
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform">
<location path="%XDT_SITENAME%" xdt:Transform="InsertIfMissing" xdt:Locator="Match(path)">
<system.webServer xdt:Transform="InsertIfMissing">
<rewrite xdt:Transform="InsertIfMissing">
<rules xdt:Transform="InsertIfMissing" lockElements="clear">
<rule name="redirect HTTP to HTTPS" enabled="true" stopProcessing="true" lockItem="true">
<match url="(.*)" />
<conditions>
<add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="off" ignoreCase="true" />
<add input="{WARMUP_REQUEST}" pattern="1" negate="true" />
</conditions>
<action type="Redirect" url="https://{HTTP_HOST}/{R:1}" appendQueryString="true" redirectType="Permanent" />
</rule>
</rules>
</rewrite>
</system.webServer>
</location>
</configuration>
R:1 is a back-reference to the rule pattern. You append that to the url here:
url="https://{HTTP_HOST}/{R:1}"
changing that into
url="https://{HTTP_HOST}"
should result in a redirect to the https root.

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