Configure SSL bridging

An SSL bridge configured on the NetScaler appliance enables the appliance to bridge all secure traffic between the SSL client and the SSL server. The appliance does not perform offloading, encryption or decryption, or accelerating the bridged traffic. Only load balancing is done by the appliance. The SSL server must handle all SSL-related processing. Features such as content switching and cache redirection do not work, because the traffic passing through the appliance is encrypted.

Because the appliance does not carry out any SSL processing in an SSL bridging setup, there is no need for SSL certificates.

Citrix recommends that you use this configuration only if an acceleration unit (for example, a PCI-based SSL accelerator card) is installed in the web server to handle the SSL processing overhead.

Before you configure SSL bridging, first enable SSL and load balancing on the appliance. Then, create SSL_Bridge services and bind them to an SSL_Bridge virtual server. Configure the load balancing feature to maintain server persistency for secure requests.

In the following example, after enabling SSL and load balancing, create two servers, s1 and s2. Create two SSL_Bridge services, sc1 and src2. Create an SSL_Bridge virtual server and bind the SSL_Bridge services to the virtual server to complete the configuration. At the command line, type:

enable ns feature SSL LB

add server s1 192.0.2.100

add server s2 192.0.2.200

add service src1 s1 SSL_BRIDGE 443

add service src2 s2 SSL_BRIDGE 443

add lb vserver ssl_bridge_vip SSL_BRIDGE 203.0.113.10 443

bind lb vserver ssl_bridge_vip src1

bind lb vserver ssl_bridge_vip src2
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Configure SSL bridging