TCP Proxy Feature

Introduction

The TCP proxy feature acts as a gateway between Pathfinder and the database for environments where direct access to the database is not allowed for Pathfinder.

If you activate this feature, Pathfinder Server will forward all data requests to the database and then come back through the same TCP port.

Enabling the proxy feature

1 ) After installing Pathfinder server (depending on the operative system you are using, see Pathfinder Server Manual ), you need to manually edit the appsettings.json file (which is located on the root folder of the application installation folder) whose content will be something like this:

{
		"server": {
			"httpportenabled": "true",
			"httpport": "8088",
			"httpsportenabled": "true",
			"httpsport": "8087",
			"hostname": "*",
			"basicauthenticationenabled": "true",
			"WaitForDebugger": "false",
			"apikeyauthenticationenabled": "true"
		},
		"database": {
			"databasetype": "Postgresql",
			"connectionstring": "Server=localhost;database=mydatabase;USER ID=myuser;Password=mypass",
			"connectionretriesonstart": "5",
			"proxyenabled": "false",
			"proxyport": "8086"
		},
		"certificatesettings": {
			"filename": "tripunkt.pfx",
			"password": "tripunkt"
		}
}

If you want to enable the proxy feature, just change the "proxyenabled" attribute value from "false" to "true", and if you need the proxy to work in a port other than 8086 you can change the "proxyport" attribute value as well.

2) In order to add the needed firewall rules and restart Pathfinder Server service, you have two options:

a) Add the rules and restart the service manually

b) Run the Pathfinder Server Setup application and go through the flow until finish

Disabling the proxy feature

1) Edit the appsettings.json file and set the "proxyenabled" attribute value from "true" to "false".

2) Delete the firewall rules for proxy server ports and restart the service by:

a) Deleting the rules and restart the service manually

b) Running the Pathfinder Server Setup application and go through the flow until finish

Setting up Pathfinder connection using the proxy server

It’s set the same way as a regular database connection, but instead of the database server name (or IP or domain), you will use the Pathfinder Server name (or IP or domain) and instead of the database engine port, you will connect to the proxy server port (by default it is 8086).

See Pathfinder Administrator's Manual for further information.