Server Name Indication (SNI)

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Scooby
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed May 21, 2008 6:46 am

Server Name Indication (SNI)

Post by Scooby »

SNI is an extension to the TLS protocol that allows a web browser to identify the URL it is looking for before SSL is negotiated. This way multiple SSL sites can be hosted in a single IP/Port. SNI has been around since 2003. Apache has supported it since 2009 and Windows IIS started support in Serrver 2012. Nearly all major web browsers support this extension as well.

Please add support for SNI into HostMonitor so that it can still be viable for validating SSL websites as these features are more widely implemented to more efficiently use IP space.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication
KS-Soft
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Post by KS-Soft »

What version of HostMonitor and Windows do you use?
If you are using HostMonitor version 7.21 or higher and Windows Vista or higher, URL test should support SNI

Regards
Alex
Scooby
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed May 21, 2008 6:46 am

Post by Scooby »

I'm using HM 9.40.

It might be working correctly when I set up a standard monitor; currently all the sites I am checking directly with HostMonitor use the same wildcard certificate.

I guess my trouble is when I use agents without name resolution. My sites are load balanced and I typically set up monitors to check the individual nodes behind the load balancer using a remote agent. The problem is that I cannot use the site name in the URL test because the agent needs to use a different IP addresses for each node on the same URL. Instead, I use the IP address for each node and for URL tests using HTTP, I add header information for "Host:" so that it can resolve the correct site. Unfortunately this does not appear to work for URL test using HTTPS and SNI.

IS there another way to set up the test to make it work?
KS-Soft
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Post by KS-Soft »

Sorry, we did not find such option in Windows API so its not easy modification...

Regards
Alex
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