Add support for redirection to corporate proxy

[sinedied]

Hello,

I'm working behind a corporate proxy, and I can't seem to make redirection work through it.

Here is my config:

{
  context: '/api',
  options: {
    pathRewrite: { '^/api' : '' },
    target: 'http://api.stuff.com',
    changeOrigin: true,
    toProxy: 'http://x.x.x.x:8080/'
  }

Maybe it's a misuse of the toProxy option, but I can't find a good example usage.

In another hand, it would be nice to make use of the standard http_proxy and https_proxy environment variables to make this work automatically without having to fiddle through the config (most node modules use these to work through corporate proxies).

Thanks for your help

[chimurai]

Hi,

I've never used the toProxy option before...
http-proxy-middleware is just a small middleware wrapper around http-proxy.

From the http-proxy's code and tests I noticed toProxy is expecting a boolean. Perhaps changing it to a boolean wil solve the issue.

http-proxy code comment:
https://github.com/nodejitsu/node-http-proxy/blob/76051032e7dcea522a691e88ffbc2f8d03f1365c/lib/http-proxy.js#L40

http-proxy test case:
https://github.com/nodejitsu/node-http-proxy/blob/76051032e7dcea522a691e88ffbc2f8d03f1365c/test/lib-http-proxy-common-test.js#L238

Interesting idea.
Could you clarify or give an example on how http_proxy and https_proxy environment variables could be used and configured automatically?

[sinedied]

I already tried using true as a value for toProxy, still no luck.

I'll explain what I would like to achieve:

• I have browserSync with a dev server setup for my web app
• The backend endpoint should be located at the /api URI, with the same host as the web app.
  For this I use your module, to redirect /api to http://other_host.com/api, another host with the backend (integration or production server).
• When I have to use a corporate proxy for internet access, I would like this setup to work: requests to http://other_host.com/api should go through the proxy.

My problem is currently the last point, and it would be where the http_proxy environment variables should be used (to redirect or not through the proxy). Even manually, I am currently unable to make the last point work, I know it should be possible but I don't know how :-/

[sinedied]

I looked at the issues in node-http-proxy and found a possible solution to my issue: http-party/node-http-proxy#832

Seems like it could be fixed in code and not in the config (example for https with env variable):

var HttpsProxyAgent = require('https-proxy-agent');
var proxyServer = process.env.http_proxy;

var proxy = httpProxy.createProxyServer({
agent: new HttpsProxyAgent(proxyServer)
});

[chimurai]

Interesting. If that solves the issue, it probably will work as well when you provide agent to http-proxy-middleware as such:

var proxyMiddleware = require('http-proxy-middleware');
var HttpsProxyAgent = require('https-proxy-agent');
var proxyServer     = process.env.http_proxy;

var proxy = proxyMiddleware({
  context: '/api',
  options: {
    pathRewrite: { '^/api' : '' },
    target: 'http://api.stuff.com',
    changeOrigin: true,
    agent: new HttpsProxyAgent(proxyServer)
})

[sinedied]

That's what I'm currently doing, with added env.http_proxy detection:

function setupCorporateProxy(options) {
  var proxyServer = process.env.http_proxy || process.env.HTTP_PROXY;
  if (proxyServer) {
    options.agent = new HttpProxyAgent(proxyServer);
    gutil.log(gutil.colors.cyan('Using corporate proxy server: ' + proxyServer));
  }

  return options;
}

The request seems to be sent to the proxy just fine, but now the URL rewriting is skipped for the request sent to the proxy: according to my config, the /api should be removed when sent to the proxy but it is not :-/

[chimurai]

Think I found the pathRewrite issue...

I pushed a patch into this branch:
https://github.com/chimurai/http-proxy-middleware/tree/proxy-agent-path-rewrite-fix

Would be great if you could test this patch, before merging the patch.

[sinedied]

I just tested, it works!!

Good job, and thanks for the quick fix 👍

[chimurai]

Np. Thanks for reporting the issue!

Just pushed v0.8.1 with the fix.

[gstroup]

Spent half the day fighting with my corporate proxy, until I found this. Thank you! Works perfectly.

[chimurai]

Glad to hear this thread helped you out.

I've added a corporate proxy configuration example to the recipes:
https://github.com/chimurai/http-proxy-middleware/blob/master/recipes/corporate-proxy.md

[gstroup]

Perfect. Thanks!