masquerade an URL - how to do that!?

English Applications
1

good day dear linux experts - hello all opensuse friends

I would like to be able to masquerade an URL, that is to keep the URL the
user is entering when going to a page. For example:
The user is entering at his browser:

http://foo.mydomain.com

This must be forwarded to:

http://foo.otherdomain.com

But on his browser, the address displayed must stay http://foo.mycompanydomain.com
I would like to configure this - but how:!!?

Has anyone an idea how to proceed?

2

You can probably do that by making the “mydomain.com” page a frame that displays the other page.

3

You’re asking about re-writing URLs.

This can be done a number of ways on the Server side…

  • The web server sometimes has this capability built in. Apache for instance has a loadable module which will do this.
  • The web application itself may have this capability. For example, I understand the Forums software these openSUSE Technical Help Forums use has that capability but has been disabled due to a security bug.
  • You can place a reverse proxy in front of your web server. Because the client connects to the Proxy and not the web server, the Proxy oftentimes can modify the URL however you wish, while still fetching pages from the actual web server.

“masquerading” typically has a different definition so you won’t find anything using that as your keyword search.

TSU

4

hello dear nrickert hello dear TSU

first of all - many many thanks for the replies - great to hear from you
i will take all into account

many many thanks for the quick answer: well to rephrase the ideas & wanted things again - in other words:

I would like to be able to masquerade an URL, that is to keep the URL the user is entering when going to a page.

For example: The user is entering at his browser:

mydomain.com

This must be forwarded to:

otherdomain.com

But on his browser, the address displayed must stay mydomain.com I would like to configure this - but how:!!?

and i guess that this is possible if we

own mydomain.com, so that we can set up a reverse proxy there
and then we can use this reverse proxy to forward to otherdomain.com, e.g. the user will still connect to mydomain.com, but we will redirect all traffic to otherdomain.com

Unfortunatly this will break, if otherdomain.com will contain pages which link to URLs with the hostname otherdomain.com (e.g. absolute URLs containing a hostname). If the user follows them it will connect directly to otherdomain.com, e.g. without our reverse proxy, and this will show up in the browser.

Another way might be to use frames, e.g. frame otherdomain.com inside a page of mydomain.com. This will break if otherdomain.com sets HTTP headers for security, so that it does not get framed or if it contains which explicitly open a new window or tab.

5

It sounds very much like you’re trying to do something that’s against the wishes of the owner of the original content.
Many methods which used to work no longer do to prevent XSS which today is considered a possible way to implement phishing attacks. In other words, typically the User has every right and <should> see what page he is actually connecting to.

I recommend you contact the site owner and request permission to re-publish his content.
And, you might see if he isn’t already publishing RSS. If he is, depending on what is in the RSS feed, it might be the full content or only a thumbnail. Embedding RSS feed content in your webpages is easy (plenty of solutions, usually what you choose will depend on your website framework if you are using one).

TSU

6

hi there

thx for the message. here only a short message since i am in hurry.

Nope at all: both domains are owned by me.

All the ideas concerning the masqerade are rooted in practical reasons. in other words: i do not want to build two sites
a. an english one
b. a german one.

  • note: both have to do with each other - so there are practical reasons in doing so…

more later the week

have a great day

7

Dilbert
I must not understand your issue correctly - I visit many sites that are multilingual - readers choice.

Here is just an example http://www.jtronics.de/software/jcnc-cnc-steuerung.html

Or are you wanting the site to use some “magic” to determine the probably correct language and not force the user to choose?