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Troubleshoot the web application bridge

The following items are known limitations:

    Known issue with Microsoft Silver light plug-in

    Disable the Microsoft Silver light plug-in in browsers when we use the Sharepoint features with the web application bridge.

    Known security issue

    Do not enter < or > into any of the text boxes. There is a known security issue. A user can write a JavaScript to hijack the Virtual Web Application Manager and Web Dock portlets.

    Known issue with turning information mode on

    If you turn on information mode while we create a content provider, the dialog closes. You return to the summary table with no additional information shown. Turn on information mode and then create the content provider.

    Web applications containing navigation to multiple hosts

    A web page served by an application containing URLs that point to a host that is not the registered host for the web application does not work.

    Web applications with URL redirection

    Any web application that uses URL redirection for serving content is not supported. For example...

      <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="2;url=http://someotherserver.com/">

    Web applications that serve content with incorrect mime-types

    Any web application that serves web resources with an incorrect mime-type does not work. For example, a jpg image that is served as text/html instead of the correct image/jpeg mime-type does not work.

    Web applications that server an iFrame that overlays the complete page

    Any web application that serves content inside an iFrame that overlays the complete page is not supported.

    Web applications that prevent their content to be loaded inside an iFrame

    Any web application containing a script to check whether the page document window is the main window or not before it displays the contents does not work.

    Web applications with non-standard browser features

    Any web application that depends specifically on a non-standard feature provided by a specific vendor's web browser does not work.

    Web applications with vendor-specific client-side capabilities

    Any web application that uses vendor-specific offline caching APIs, for example: Google and Gears, does not work.

    Web dock applications are not supported on Mobile devices

    Web dock applications are not supported on mobile devices. We might see an error message; for example: "Error 500: Internal Server Error: Some unexpected error". The administrator can configure their web server to redirect these errors to a friendlier error message. Refer to the web server documentation for information on how to redirect Error 500 messages.

    We can also write a visibility rule to hide the portlet from mobile devices:

    • Log in to HCL WebSphere Portal.

    • Go to Personalization.

    • Create the following rule to hide the portlet:

        Hide page or portlet when current Device.Device Class includes smartphone or current Device.Device Class includes tablet Otherwise show

    • Click Administration > Portal user interface > Manage Pages.

    • Find the page and click Edit layout.

    • Go to the web dock application to apply the rule to.

      If necessary, we need to apply this rule to every web dock application created.

    • Select Show Portlet Rule Mapping.

    • Select the rule created.

    • Save the changes.

    Reverse Proxy servlet

    • No Persistent Cookie handling (all cookies are treated as sessions)

    • No special HTTP 1.0 support

    • Caching based on HTTP headers not yet implemented

    The Portal search does not work for WAB - iFrame content

    If the search crawler indexes a page, the page might not be available for search in a later session. Therefore, verify the Search crawler user ID does not have access to the web application bridge.

    Sharepoint integration

    The View RSS feed option is not supported.

    Web dock applications are not supported on Mobile devices

    Web dock applications are not supported on mobile devices. We might see an error message; for example: "Error 500: Internal Server Error: Some unexpected error". The administrator can configure their web server to redirect these errors to a friendlier error message. Refer to the web server documentation for information on how to redirect Error 500 messages.

    We can also write a visibility rule to hide the portlet from mobile devices:

    • Log in to HCL WebSphere Portal.

    • Go to Personalization.

    • Create the following rule to hide the portlet:

        Hide page or portlet when current Device.Device Class includes smartphone or current Device.Device Class includes tablet Otherwise show

    • Click Administration > Portal user interface > Manage Pages.

    • Find the page and click Edit layout.

    • Go to the web dock application to apply the rule to.

      If necessary, we need to apply this rule to every web dock application created.

    • Select Show Portlet Rule Mapping.

    • Select the rule created.

    • Save the changes.

Review the following questions to help we integrate and troubleshoot the web application bridge integration:

    Can I use the localhost or IP address of an application to integrating it with the web application bridge?

    Always specify fully qualified host name of the application. Do not use the localhost or IP address. We must also use the fully qualified host name when we access HCL WebSphere Portal.

    What request headers are always propagated?

    • Date

    • Pragma

    • Via

    • Accept

    • Accept-Charset

    • Accept-Encoding

    • Accept-Language

    • From

    • Referrer

    • Allow

    • Content-Encoding

    • Content-Language

    • Content-Length

    • Content-Location

    • Content-MD5

    • Content-Type

    • User-Agent

    What request headers are always blocked?

    • Host

    • Authorization

    • Range

    • Connection

    • Keep-Alive

    • Proxy-Authorization

    • TE

    • Trailers

    • Transfer-Encoding

    • Upgrade

    What response headers are always propagated?

    • Date

    • Pragma

    • Via

    • Server

    • Allow

    • Content-Encoding

    • Content-Language

    • Content-Length

    • Content-Location

    • Content-MD5

    • Content-Type

    What response headers are always blocked?

    • Location

    • WWW-Authenticate

    • Proxy-Authenticate

    • Accept-Ranges

    • Content-Range

    • Connection

    • Trailers

    • Transfer-Encoding

    • Upgrade

    What do I do if I consistently see an error page in the view mode?

    Log out of HCL WebSphere Portal. Clear all cookies and log back in to HCL WebSphere Portal. Use the fully qualified host name.

    How do I remove the Sharepoint navigation that shows in the Web Dock portlet?

    Review the Sharepoint documentation about hiding the navigation panel without changing the master page. We can also add filters to your application to parse the content that is not required.

    What sites create integration problems?

    The following types of sites can cause integration problems:

    • Sites that have absolute URLs in the content or JavaScript

    • Sites that use JavaScript, META refresh, absolute URLs for redirection

    • Sites that use JavaScript to ensure that a web application is within the top frame and not an embedded frame, for example:

        if(top.location.href!=self.location.href){top.location.href=self.location.href

    What is the unit for specifying height and width in the Web Dock portlet?

    Height and width are specified in pixels. The page theme might restrict the width to maximum limit allowed by the theme.

    How can I enable tracing for the web application bridge?

    Add the following string to the Enable Tracing portlet in HCL WebSphere Portal:

      com.ibm.wps.vwat.*=all:com.ibm.wps.wab.*=all

    Why can I not access my internet mail application?

    For an internet application that has complex security features, the web application bridge might not be able to access the application. One example of an internet application with complex security features is Yahoo. If we are unable to access the internet application and you verified the settings in the application component are correct, contact Support.

    Browse page never loads and keeps cycling

    If the web browser never loads and keeps cycling, the server times might not match. If we are using Firefox, we see a message the portal session timed out and to log in. To fix this issue, match the server time to the application we are bridging and restart portal.

    Public URLs with multiple host do not display properly

    If the public site fetches content from multiple hosts, then such sites do not render properly on the Web Dock portlet. For example, Wikipedia loads content from the following different hosts:

    • en.wikipedia.org

    • bits.wikimedia.org

    • upload.wikimedia.org

    • meta.wikimedia.org

    Cookies that are exchanged between the web server and the application server

    Set the cookies that are exchanged between the web server and the application server to HTTP only disables the web application bridge.

    Does WAB provide support for SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language)?

    WAB does not support SAML, unless the SAML token is inside of a cookie and the Portal server and the target server are in the same domain. The client-side cookie forwarding feature can be used in such a scenario. For example, the name of the cookie needs to be specified in the Policy > HTTP Cookies section of the VWA Manager portlet.

    What if the context root for the application that needs to be integrated matches the context root of another application that is already installed on the portal server?

    You want to integrate an application whose URI starts with /abc. A second application exists on the Portal server with the same context root: /abc. If the first application needs to be integrated into portal through the web application bridge, then the second application needs to be stopped or removed from the portal server.

    I see too many pollings requests when I integrate with Netweaver

    This issue might be because some headers are not being forwarded to the Netweaver server. These headers are is_icm_polling_user, userId, and Content-Type. Open the Virtual Web Application Manager portlet and add these headers to the list of allowed headers in the policy for Netweaver.

    Use Simple and Protected GSS-API Negotiation (SPNEGO) on Windows

    With SPNEGO-based single-sign on, the credentials are always automatically picked. Therefore, the user does not need to provide the credentials in the Personalize mode. They are always the user who is logged in to Windows.

    Single-sign on

    It is expected the login buttons or similar things like "Switch user" buttons of the backend application are not available. They are either removed with the filters or the backend applications are directly configured. In other words, the content author can provide the credentials only through the Personalize mode of the web dock application portlet.


Parent The web application bridge