Virtual Private Network (VPN)

Learn how to connect AEM as a Cloud Service with your VPN to create secure communication channels between AEM and internal services.

What is Virtual Private Network?

Virtual Private Network (VPN) allows an AEM as a Cloud Service customer to connect the AEM environments within a Cloud Manager Program to an existing, supported VPN. This allows secure, and controlled connections between AEM as a Cloud Service and services within the customer’s network.

A Cloud Manager Program can only have a single network infrastructure type. Ensure that Virtual Private Network is the most appropriate type of network infrastructure for your AEM as a Cloud Service before executing the following commands.

Prerequisites

The following are required when setting up Virtual Private Network:

• Adobe account with Cloud Manager Business Owner permissions
• Access to Cloud Manager API’s authentication credentials
  • Organization ID (aka IMS Org ID)
  • Client ID (aka API Key)
  • Access Token (aka Bearer Token)
• The Cloud Manager Program ID
• The Cloud Manager Environment IDs
• A Virtual Private Network, with access to all necessary connection parameters.

For more details watch the following walkthrough for how to setup, configure, and obtain Cloud Manger API credentials, and how to use them to make a Cloud Manager API call.

This tutorial uses curl to make the Cloud Manager API configurations. The provided curl commands assume a Linux/macOS syntax. If using the Windows command prompt, replace the \ line-break character with ^.

Enable Virtual Private Network per program

Start by enabling the Virtual Private Network on AEM as a Cloud Service.

1. First, determine the region in which the Advanced Networking will be set up by using the Cloud Manager API listRegions operation. The region name will be required to make subsequent Cloud Manager API calls. Typically, the region the Production environment resides in is used.

   listRegions HTTP request

   $ curl -X GET https://cloudmanager.adobe.io/api/program/{programId}/regions \
       -H 'x-gw-ims-org-id: <ORGANIZATION_ID>' \
       -H 'x-api-key: <CLIENT_ID>' \
       -H 'Authorization: Bearer <ACCESS_TOKEN>' \
       -H 'Content-Type: application/json'
   

2. Enable Virtual Private Network for a Cloud Manager Program using Cloud Manager APIs createNetworkInfrastructure operation. Use the appropriate region code obtained from the Cloud Manager API listRegions operation.

   createNetworkInfrastructure HTTP request

   $ curl -X POST https://cloudmanager.adobe.io/api/program/{programId}/networkInfrastructures \
       -H 'x-gw-ims-org-id: <ORGANIZATION_ID>' \
       -H 'x-api-key: <CLIENT_ID>' \
       -H 'Authorization: Bearer <ACCESS_TOKEN>' \
       -H 'Content-Type: application/json'
       -d @./vpn-create.json
   

   Define the JSON parameters in a vpn-create.json and provided to curl via ... -d @./vpn-create.json.

   Download the example vpn-create.json

   {
       "kind": "vpn",
       "region": "va7",
       "addressSpace": [
           "10.104.182.64/26"
       ],
       "dns": {
           "resolvers": [
               "10.151.201.22",
               "10.151.202.22",
               "10.154.155.22"
           ],
           "domains": [
               "wknd.site",
               "wknd.com"
           ]
       },
       "connections": [{
           "name": "connection-1",
           "gateway": {
               "address": "195.231.212.78",
               "addressSpace": [
                   "10.151.0.0/16",
                   "10.152.0.0/16",
                   "10.153.0.0/16",
                   "10.154.0.0/16",
                   "10.142.0.0/16",
                   "10.143.0.0/16",
                   "10.124.128.0/17"
               ]
           },
           "sharedKey": "<secret_shared_key>",
           "ipsecPolicy": {
               "dhGroup": "ECP256",
               "ikeEncryption": "AES256",
               "ikeIntegrity": "SHA256",
               "ipsecEncryption": "AES256",
               "ipsecIntegrity": "SHA256",
               "pfsGroup": "ECP256",
               "saDatasize": 102400000,
               "saLifetime": 3600
           }
       }]
   }
   

   Wait 45-60 minutes for the Cloud Manager Program to provision the network infrastructure.

3. Check that the environment has finished Virtual Private Network configuration using the Cloud Manager API getNetworkInfrastructure operation, using the id returned from the createNetworkInfrastructure HTTP request in the previous step.

   getNetworkInfrastructure HTTP request

   $ curl -X GET https://cloudmanager.adobe.io/api/program/{programId}/networkInfrastructure/{networkInfrastructureId} \
       -H 'x-gw-ims-org-id: <ORGANIZATION_ID>' \
       -H 'x-api-key: <CLIENT_ID>' \
       -H 'Authorization: <YOUR_BEARER_TOKEN>' \
       -H 'Content-Type: application/json'
   

   Verify that the HTTP response contains a status of ready. If not yet ready recheck the status every few minutes.

Configure Virtual Private Network proxies per environment

1. Enable and configure the Virtual Private Network configuration on each AEM as a Cloud Service environment using the Cloud Manager API enableEnvironmentAdvancedNetworkingConfiguration operation.

   enableEnvironmentAdvancedNetworkingConfiguration HTTP request

   $ curl -X PUT https://cloudmanager.adobe.io/api/program/{programId}/environment/{environmentId}/advancedNetworking \
       -H 'x-gw-ims-org-id: <ORGANIZATION_ID>' \
       -H 'x-api-key: <CLIENT_ID>' \
       -H 'Authorization: Bearer <ACCESS_TOKEN>' \
       -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
       -d @./vpn-configure.json
   

   Define the JSON parameters in a vpn-configure.json and provided to curl via ... -d @./vpn-configure.json.

   Download the example vpn-configure.json

   {
       "nonProxyHosts": [
           "example.net",
           "*.example.org"
       ],
       "portForwards": [
           {
               "name": "mysql.example.com",
               "portDest": 3306,
               "portOrig": 30001
           },
           {
               "name": "smtp.sendgrid.com",
               "portDest": 465,
               "portOrig": 30002
           }
       ]
   }
   

   nonProxyHosts declares a set of hosts for which port 80 or 443 should be routed through the default shared IP address ranges rather than the dedicated egress IP. nonProxyHosts may be useful as traffic egressing through shared IPs may be further optimized automatically by Adobe.

   For each portForwards mapping, the advanced networking defines the following forwarding rule:

   Proxy host	Proxy port		External host	External port
   AEM_PROXY_HOST	portForwards.portOrig	→	portForwards.name	portForwards.portDest

   If your AEM deployment only requires HTTP/HTTPS connections to external service, leave the portForwards array empty, as these rules are only required for non-HTTP/HTTPS requests.

2. For each environment, validate the vpn routing rules are in effect using the Cloud Manager API’s getEnvironmentAdvancedNetworkingConfiguration operation.

   getEnvironmentAdvancedNetworkingConfiguration HTTP request

   $ curl -X GET https://cloudmanager.adobe.io/api/program/{programId}/environment/{environmentId}/advancedNetworking \
       -H 'x-gw-ims-org-id: <ORGANIZATION_ID>' \
       -H 'x-api-key: <CLIENT_ID>' \
       -H 'Authorization: Bearer <ACCESS_TOKEN>' \
       -H 'Content-Type: application/json'
   

3. Virtual private network proxy configurations can be updated using the Cloud Manager API’s enableEnvironmentAdvancedNetworkingConfiguration operation. Remember enableEnvironmentAdvancedNetworkingConfiguration is a PUT operation, so all rules must be provided with every invocation of this operation.

4. Now you can use the Virtual Private Network egress configuration in your custom AEM code and configuration.

Connecting to external services over the Virtual Private Network

With the Virtual Private Network enabled, AEM code and configuration can use them to make calls to external services via the VPN. There are two flavors of external calls that AEM treats differently:

1. HTTP/HTTPS calls to external services on non-standard ports
   • Includes HTTP/HTTPS calls made to services running on ports other than the standard 80 or 443 ports.
2. non-HTTP/HTTPS calls to external services
   • Includes any non-HTTP calls, such as connections with Mail servers, SQL databases, or services that run on other non-HTTP/HTTPS protocols.

HTTP/HTTPS requests from AEM on standard ports (80/443) are allowed by default and need no extra configuration or considerations.

HTTP/HTTPS on non-standard ports

When creating HTTP/HTTPS connections to non-standard ports (not-80/443) from AEM, the connection must be made through special host and ports, provided via placeholders.

AEM provides two sets of special Java™ system variables that map to AEM’s HTTP/HTTPS proxies.

Requests to HTTP/HTTPS external services should be made by configuring the Java™ HTTP client’s proxy configuration via AEM’s proxy hosts/ports values.

When making HTTP/HTTPS calls to external services on non-standard ports, no corresponding portForwards must be defined using Cloud Manager API’s __enableEnvironmentAdvancedNetworkingConfiguration operation, as the port forwarding “rules” are defined “in code”.

Code examples

HTTP/HTTPS on non-standard ports Java™ code example making HTTP/HTTPS connection from AEM as a Cloud Service to an external service on non-standard HTTP/HTTPS ports.

Non-HTTP/HTTPS connections code examples

When creating non-HTTP/HTTPS connections (ex. SQL, SMTP, and so on) from AEM, the connection must be made through a special host name provided by AEM.

Connections to external services are then called through the AEM_PROXY_HOST and the mapped port (portForwards.portOrig), which AEM then routes to the mapped external hostname (portForwards.name) and port (portForwards.portDest).

Code examples

SQL connection using JDBC DataSourcePool Java™ code example connecting to external SQL databases by configuring AEM's JDBC datasource pool.

SQL connection using Java™ APIs Java™ code example connecting to external SQL databases using Java™'s SQL APIs.

E-mail service OSGi configuration example using AEM's to connect to external e-mail services.

Limit access to AEM as a Cloud Service via VPN

The Virtual Private Network configuration limits access to AEM as a Cloud Service environments to a VPN.

Configuration examples

Applying an IP allowlist Configure an IP allowlist such that only VPN traffic can access AEM.

Path-based VPN access restrictions to AEM Publish Require VPN access for specific paths on AEM Publish.