This article aims to introduce you to the different advanced networking features in AEM as a Cloud Service, including self-serve provisioning of VPN, non-standard ports, and dedicated egress IP addresses.
You can also find a series of articles designed to walk you through each of the advanced networking options at this location.
AEM as a Cloud Service offers several types of advanced networking capabilities, which can be configured by customers using Cloud Manager APIs. These include:
This article describes each of these options in detail, including how they can be configured. As a general configuration strategy, the /networkInfrastructures
API endpoint is invoked at the program level to declare the desired type of advanced networking, followed by a call to the /advancedNetworking
endpoint for each environment to enable the infrastructure and configure environment-specific parameters. Reference the appropriate endpoints in the Cloud Manager API documentation for each formal syntax, and sample requests and responses.
A program can provision a single advanced networking variation. When deciding between flexible port egress and dedicated egress IP address, it is recommended you choose flexible port egress if a specific IP address is not required because Adobe can optimize performance of flexible port egress traffic.
Advanced networking is not available for the sandbox program.
Also, environments must be upgraded to AEM version 5958 or higher.
Customers already provisioned with legacy dedicated egress technology who need to configure one of these options should not do so or site connectivity may be impacted. Contact Adobe Support for assistance.
This advanced networking feature lets you configure AEM as a Cloud Service to egress traffic through ports other than HTTP (port 80) and HTTPS (port 443), which are open by default.
Flexible port egress is the recommended choice if you do not need VPN and do not need a dedicated egress IP address since traffic that does not rely on a dedicated egress can achieve higher throughput.
Once per program, the POST /program/<programId>/networkInfrastructures
endpoint is invoked, simply passing the value of flexiblePortEgress
for the kind
parameter and region. The endpoint responds with the network_id
, and other information including the status. The full set of parameters and exact syntax, and important information like what parameters cannot be changed later, can be referenced in the API docs.
Once called, it typically takes approximately 15 minutes for the networking infrastructure to be provisioned. A call to the Cloud Manager’s network infrastructure GET endpoint would show a status of “ready”.
If the program-scoped flexible port egress configuration is ready, the PUT /program/<program_id>/environment/<environment_id>/advancedNetworking
endpoint must be invoked per environment to enable networking at the environment level and to optionally declare any port forwarding rules. Parameters are configurable per environment to offer flexibility.
Port forwarding rules should be declared for any destination ports other than 80/443, but only if not using http or https protocol,
by specifying the set of destination hosts (names or IP, and with ports). The client connection using port 80/443 over http/https must still use proxy settings in their connection to have the properties of advanced networking applied to the connection. For each destination host, customers must map the intended destination port to a port from 30000 through 30999.
The API should respond in just a few seconds, indicating a status of updating and after about 10 minutes, the endpoint’s GET
method should indicate that advanced networking is enabled.
The program level configuration can be updated by invoking the PUT /api/program/<program_id>/network/<network_id>
endpoint and will take effect within a few minutes.
The “kind” parameter (flexiblePortEgress
, dedicatedEgressIP
or VPN
) cannot be modified. Contact customer support for assistance, describing what has already been created and the reason for the change.
The per environment port forwarding rules can be updated by again invoking the PUT /program/{programId}/environment/{environmentId}/advancedNetworking
endpoint, making sure to include the full set of configuration parameters, rather than a subset.
To disable flexible port egress from a particular environment, invoke DELETE [/program/{programId}/environment/{environmentId}/advancedNetworking]()
.
For more information on the APIs, see the Cloud Manager API Documentation.
For http or https traffic going to ports other than 80 or 443 a proxy should be configured using the following host and port environment variables:
AEM_PROXY_HOST
/ AEM_HTTP_PROXY_PORT
(default to proxy.tunnel:3128
in AEM releases < 6094)AEM_PROXY_HOST
/ AEM_HTTPS_PROXY_PORT
(default to proxy.tunnel:3128
in AEM releases < 6094)For example, here’s sample code to send a request to www.example.com:8443
:
String url = "www.example.com:8443"
String proxyHost = System.getenv().getOrDefault("AEM_PROXY_HOST", "proxy.tunnel");
int proxyPort = Integer.parseInt(System.getenv().getOrDefault("AEM_HTTPS_PROXY_PORT", "3128"));
HttpClient client = HttpClient.newBuilder()
.proxy(ProxySelector.of(new InetSocketAddress(proxyHost, proxyPort)))
.build();
HttpRequest request = HttpRequest.newBuilder().uri(URI.create(url)).build();
HttpResponse<String> response = client.send(request, BodyHandlers.ofString());
If using non-standard Java networking libraries, configure proxies using the properties above, for all traffic.
Non-http/s traffic with destinations through ports declared in the portForwards
parameter should reference a property called AEM_PROXY_HOST
, along with the mapped port. For example:
DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:mysql://" + System.getenv("AEM_PROXY_HOST") + ":53306/test");
The table below describes traffic routing:
Traffic | Destination condition | Port | Connection | External destination example |
---|---|---|---|---|
Http or https protocol | Standard http/s traffic | 80 or 443 | Allowed | |
Non-standard traffic (on other ports outside 80 or 443) through http proxy configured using the following environment variable and proxy port number. Do not declare the destination port in the Cloud Manager API call's portForwards parameter:
| Ports outside 80 or 443 | Allowed | example.com:8443 | |
Non-standard traffic (on other ports outside of ports 80 or 443) not using http proxy | Ports outside 80 or 443 | Blocked | ||
Non-http or non-https | Client connects to the AEM_PROXY_HOST environment variable using a portOrig declared in the portForwards API parameter. |
Any | Allowed | mysql.example.com:3306 |
Everything else | Any | Blocked | db.example.com:5555 |
Apache / Dispatcher configuration
The AEM Cloud Service Apache/Dispatcher tier’s mod_proxy
directive can be configured using the properties described above.
ProxyRemote "http://example.com:8080" "http://${AEM_PROXY_HOST}:3128"
ProxyPass "/somepath" "http://example.com:8080"
ProxyPassReverse "/somepath" "http://example.com:8080"
SSLProxyEngine on //needed for https backends
ProxyRemote "https://example.com:8443" "http://${AEM_PROXY_HOST}:3128"
ProxyPass "/somepath" "https://example.com:8443"
ProxyPassReverse "/somepath" "https://example.com:8443"
If you have been provisioned with a dedicated egress IP before the September 2021 release (10/6/21), see Legacy Dedicated Egress Address Customers.
This dedicated IP address can enhance security when integrating with SaaS vendors (like a CRM vendor) or other integrations outside of AEM as a Cloud Service that offer an allowlist of IP addresses. By adding the dedicated IP address to the allowlist, it ensures that only traffic from the customer’s AEM Cloud Service is permitted to flow into the external service. This is in addition to traffic from any other IPs allowed.
Without the dedicated IP address feature enabled, traffic coming out of AEM as a Cloud Service flows through a set of IPs shared with other customers.
The Splunk forwarding capability is not possible from a dedicated egress IP address.
Configuring dedicated egress IP address is identical to flexible port egress.
The main difference is that traffic will always egress from a dedicated, unique IP. To find that IP, use a DNS resolver to identify the IP address associated with p{PROGRAM_ID}.external.adobeaemcloud.com
. The IP address is not expected to change, but if it must change in the future, advanced notification is provided.
In addition to the routing rules supported by flexible port egress in the PUT /program/<program_id>/environment/<environment_id>/advancedNetworking
endpoint, dedicated egress IP address supports a nonProxyHosts
parameter. This lets you declare a set of hosts that should route through a shared IPs address range rather than the dedicated IP, which may be useful since traffic egressing through shared IPs may be further optimized. The nonProxyHost
URLs may follow the patterns of example.com
or *.example.com
, where the wildcard is only supported at the start of the domain.
When deciding between flexible port egress and dedicated egress IP address, customers should choose flexible port egress if a specific IP address is not required since Adobe can optimize performance of flexible port egress traffic.
To disable Dedicated Egress IP Address from a particular environment, invoke DELETE [/program/{programId}/environment/{environmentId}/advancedNetworking]()
.
For more information on the APIs, see the Cloud Manager API Documentation.
Http or https traffic will go through a preconfigured proxy, provided they use standard Java system properties for proxy configurations.
Non-http/s traffic with destinations through ports declared in the portForwards
parameter should reference a property called AEM_PROXY_HOST
, along with the mapped port. For example:
DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:mysql://" + System.getenv("AEM_PROXY_HOST") + ":53306/test");
Traffic | Destination condition | Port | Connection | External destination example |
---|---|---|---|---|
Http or https protocol | Traffic to Azure or Adobe services | Any | Through the shared cluster IPs (not the dedicated IP) | adobe.io api.windows.net |
Host matching the nonProxyHosts parameter |
80 or 443 | Through the shared cluster IPs | ||
Host matching the nonProxyHosts parameter |
Ports outside 80 or 443 | Blocked | ||
Through http proxy configuration, configured by default for http/s traffic using standard Java HTTP client library | Any | Through the dedicated egress IP | ||
Ignores http proxy configuration (for example, if explicitly removed from standard Java HTTP client library or if a Java library that ignores standard proxy configuration is used) | 80 or 443 | Through the shared cluster IPs | ||
Ignores http proxy configuration (for example, if explicitly removed from standard Java HTTP client library or if a Java library that ignores standard proxy configuration is used) | Ports outside 80 or 443 | Blocked | ||
Non-http or non-https | The client connects to AEM_PROXY_HOST env variable using a portOrig declared in the portForwards API parameter |
Any | Through the dedicated egress IP | mysql.example.com:3306 |
Anything else | Blocked |
The feature is compatible with Java code or libraries that result in outbound traffic, provided they use standard Java system properties for proxy configurations. In practice, this should include most common libraries.
Below is a code sample:
public JSONObject getJsonObject(String relativePath, String queryString) throws IOException, JSONException {
String relativeUri = queryString.isEmpty() ? relativePath : (relativePath + '?' + queryString);
URL finalUrl = endpointUri.resolve(relativeUri).toURL();
URLConnection connection = finalUrl.openConnection();
connection.addRequestProperty("Accept", "application/json");
connection.addRequestProperty("X-API-KEY", apiKey);
try (InputStream responseStream = connection.getInputStream(); Reader responseReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(responseStream, Charsets.UTF_8))) {
return new JSONObject(new JSONTokener(responseReader));
}
}
Some libraries require explicit configuration to use standard Java system properties for proxy configurations.
An example using Apache HttpClient, that requires explicit calls to
HttpClientBuilder.useSystemProperties()
or use
HttpClients.createSystem()
:
public JSONObject getJsonObject(String relativePath, String queryString) throws IOException, JSONException {
String relativeUri = queryString.isEmpty() ? relativePath : (relativePath + '?' + queryString);
URL finalUrl = endpointUri.resolve(relativeUri).toURL();
HttpClient httpClient = HttpClientBuilder.create().useSystemProperties().build();
HttpGet request = new HttpGet(finalUrl.toURI());
request.setHeader("Accept", "application/json");
request.setHeader("X-API-KEY", apiKey);
HttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(request);
String result = EntityUtils.toString(response.getEntity());
}
The same dedicated IP is applied to all of a customer’s programs in their Adobe Organization and for all environments in each of their programs. It applies to both author and publish services.
To validate that traffic is indeed outgoing on the expected dedicated IP address, check logs in the destination service, if available. Otherwise, it may be useful to call out to a debugging service such as https://ifconfig.me/IP, which will return the calling IP address.
If you have been provisioned with a dedicated egress IP before 2021.09.30, your dedicated egress IP feature only supports HTTP and HTTPS ports.
This includes HTTP/1.1, and HTTP/2 when encrypted. Also, one dedicated egress endpoint can talk to any target only over HTTP/HTTPS on ports 80/443 respectively.
VPN allows for connecting to an on-premise infrastructure or datacenter from author, publish, or preview. For example, for the means of accessing a database.
It also allows Connecting to SaaS vendors such as a CRM vendor that supports VPN or connecting from a corporate network to AEM as a Cloud Service author, preview, or publish.
Most VPN devices with IPSec technology are supported. Consult the list of devices at this page, based on the information in the RouteBased configuration instructions column. Configure the device as described in the table.
Once per program, the POST /program/<programId>/networkInfrastructures
endpoint is invoked, passing in a payload of configuration information including: the value of “vpn” for the kind
parameter, region, address space (list of CIDRs - note that this cannot be modified later), DNS resolvers (for resolving names in the customer’s network), and VPN connection information such as gateway configuration, shared VPN key, and the IP Security policy. The endpoint responds with the network_id
, and other information including the status. The full set of parameters and exact syntax should be referenced in the API documentation.
Once called, it will typically take between 45 and 60 minutes for the networking infrastructure to be provisioned. The API’s GET method can be called to return the current status, which will eventually flip from creating
to ready
. Consult the API documentation for all states.
If the program-scoped VPN configuration in ready, the PUT /program/<program_id>/environment/<environment_id>/advancedNetworking
endpoint must be invoked per environment to enable networking at the environment level and to declare any port forwarding rules. Parameters are configurable per environment to offer flexibility.
See the API documentation for more information.
Port forwarding rules should be declared for any non-http/s protocol TCP traffic that should be routed through the VPN by specifying the set of destination hosts (names or IP, and with ports). For each destination host, customers must map the intended destination port to a port from 30000 to 30999, where the values must be unique across environments in the program. Customers can also list a set of url in the nonProxyHosts
parameter, which declares URL for which traffic should bypass VPN routing, but instead through a shared IP range. It follows the patterns of example.com
or *.example.com
, where the wildcard is only supported at the start of the domain.
The API should respond in just a few seconds, indicating a status of updating
and after about 10 minutes, a call to the Cloud Manager’s environment GET endpoint would show a status of ready
, indicating that the update to the environment has been applied.
Even if there is no environment traffic routing rules (hosts or bypasses), PUT /program/<program_id>/environment/<environment_id>/advancedNetworking
must still be called, just with an empty payload.
The program-level VPN configuration can be updated by invoking the PUT /api/program/<program_id>/network/<network_id>
endpoint.
The address space cannot be changed after the initial VPN provisioning. If this is necessary, contact customer support. In addition, the kind
parameter (flexiblePortEgress
, dedicatedEgressIP
or VPN
) cannot be modified. Contact customer support for assistance, describing what has already been created and the reason for the change.
The per-environment routing rules can be updated by again invoking the PUT /program/{programId}/environment/{environmentId}/advancedNetworking
endpoint, making sure to include the full set of configuration parameter, rather than a subset. Environment updates typically take 5-10 minutes to be applied.
To disable VPN for a particular environment, invoke DELETE /program/{programId}/environment/{environmentId}/advancedNetworking
. More details in the API documentation.
The table below describes traffic routing.
Traffic | Destination Condition | Port | Connection | External destination example |
---|---|---|---|---|
Http or https protocol | Traffic to Azure or Adobe services | Any | Through the shared cluster IPs (not the dedicated IP) | adobe.io api.windows.net |
Host matching the nonProxyHosts parameter |
80 or 443 | Through the shared cluster IPs | ||
Host matching the nonProxyHosts parameter |
Ports outside 80 or 443 | Blocked | ||
If the IP falls in the VPN gateway address space range, and through http proxy configuration (configured by default for http/s traffic using standard Java HTTP client library) | Any | Through the VPN | 10.0.0.1:443 It can be a hostname as well. |
|
If the IP does not fall in the VPN gateway address space range, and through http proxy configuration (configured by default for http/s traffic using standard Java HTTP client library) | Any | Through the dedicated egress IP | ||
Ignores http proxy configuration (for example, if explicitly removed from standard Java HTTP client library or if using Java library that ignores standard proxy configuration) | 80 or 443 | Through the shared cluster IPs | ||
Ignores http proxy configuration (for example, if explicitly removed from standard Java HTTP client library or if using Java library that ignores standard proxy configuration) | Ports outside 80 or 443 | Blocked | ||
Non-http or non-https | If the IP falls in the VPN gateway address space range and the client connects to AEM_PROXY_HOST env variable using a portOrig declared in the portForwards API parameter |
Any | Through the VPN | 10.0.0.1:3306 It can be a hostname as well. |
If the IP does not fall in the VPN gateway address space range and client connects to AEM_PROXY_HOST env variable using a portOrig declared in the portForwards API parameter |
Any | Through the dedicated egress IP | ||
Anything else | Any | Blocked |
The diagram below provides a visual representation of a set of domains and associated IPs that are useful for configuration and development. The table further below the diagram describes those domains and IPs.
Domain pattern | Egress (from AEM) meaning | Ingress (to AEM) meaning |
---|---|---|
p{PROGRAM_ID}.external.adobeaemcloud.com |
Dedicated egress IP address for traffic going to the Internet rather than through private networks | Connections from the VPN would show at the CDN as coming from this IP. To only allow connections from the VPN to go into AEM, configure Cloud Manager to only allow this IP and block everything else. See the "Restrict ingress to VPN connections" section for more details. |
p{PROGRAM_ID}.{REGION}-gateway.external.adobeaemcloud.com |
N/A | The IP of the VPN gateway on the AEM side. A customer's network engineering team can use this to allow only VPN connections to their VPN gateway from a specific IP address. |
p{PROGRAM_ID}.{REGION}.inner.adobeaemcloud.net |
The IP of traffic coming from the AEM side of the VPN to the customer side. This can be allowlisted in the customer's configuration to ensure that connections can only be made from AEM. | If customer wants to allow VPN access to AEM, they should configure CNAME DNS entries to map their custom domain and/or author-p{PROGRAM_ID}-e{ENVIRONMENT_ID}.adobeaemcloud.com and/or publish-p{PROGRAM_ID}-e{ENVIRONMENT_ID}.adobeaemcloud.com to this. |
If you want to allow only VPN access to AEM, environment allowlists can be configured in Cloud Manager so that only the IP defined by p{PROGRAM_ID}.external.adobeaemcloud.com
is allowed to talk to the environment. This can be done the same way as any other IP based allowlist in Cloud Manager.
If rules must be path-based, use standard http directives at the dispatcher level to deny or allow certain IPs. They should ensure that the desired paths are also not cacheable at the CDN so that the request always gets to origin.
Httpd Config Example
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 192.168.0.1
Header always set Cache-Control private
To delete the network infrastructure for a program, invoke DELETE /program/{program ID}/networkinfrastructure/{networkinfrastructureID}
.
Delete will only delete the infrastructure if all environments have their advanced networkings disabled.
It is possible to migrate between advanced networking types by following the following procedure:
This procedure will result in a downtime of advanced networking services between deletion and recreation
If downtime would cause significant business impact, contact customer support for assistance, describing what has already been created and the reason for the change.
When an additional region is added to an environment which already has advanced networking configured, traffic from the additional publish region that matches the advanced networking rules will by default route through the primary region. However, if the primary region becomes unavailable, the advanced networking traffic is dropped if advanced networking hasn’t been enabled in the additional region. If you want to optimize latency and increase availability in case one of the regions undergoes an outage, it is necessary to enable advanced networking for the additional publish region(s). Two different scenarios are described in the following sections.
All regions share the same environment advanced networking configuration, so it is not possible to route traffic to different destinations based on the region the traffic is egressing out of.
If an advanced networking configuration is already enabled in the primary region, follow these steps:
p1234.external.adobeaemcloud.com
, for example), because all AEM regions egress advanced networking traffic from the same FQDNp1234.external.adobeaemcloud.com
. There should be one per region.The procedure is mostly similar to the previous instructions. However, if the production environment has not yet been enabled for advanced networking, there is an opportunity to test the configuration by first enabling it in a staging environment:
PUT api/program/{programId}/environment/{environmentId}/advancedNetworking
. For more information, see the API documentation herep1234.external.adobeaemcloud.com
). You can otherwise do it by IP addressThe procedure is nearly identical to the dedicated egress IP addresses instructions. The only difference is that in addition to the region property being configured differently from the primary region, the connections.gateway
field can optionally be configured to route to a different VPN endpoint operated by your organization, perhaps geographically closer to the new region.