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Proxy usage on Edge Devices

As of today, Industrial Edge Devices are designed to use a transparent proxy to redirect network traffic transparently to SOCKS or HTTP proxy servers. This proxy operates in a way that apps are not required to be proxy aware. This proxy behavior caused some problems demanding a change in the proxy behavior. Therefore in future, Industrial Edge Devices will not use a transparent proxy anymore. This means, going forward apps need to be proxy aware.

Making the app proxy aware is straight forward, if your app uses a proxy aware HTTP client. Otherwise, developers must develop the code in a way that it is proxy aware. In both ways, you must introduce predefined environment variables provided by the Edge Devices.

To get in touch with the new proxy behavior, you can test it via a switchable toggle on the Edge Device:

  1. Integrate the proxy settings in your app.
  2. Switch off the proxy on the Edge Device.
  3. Test, if your app is working properly.

In a long-term solution, the switchable proxy toggle will be removed from the Edge Device. Only proxy aware apps will then be able to communicate behind the proxy, see the use cases below.

Use Cases

According to this change in the proxy behavior, different use cases might occur:

  • Case 1: The Edge Device does not support a proxy.
    No change needed from the app provider.

  • Case 2: The Edge Device does support a proxy but app from app provider does not communicate to components behind the proxy.
    No change needed from the app provider.

  • Case 3: The Edge Device does support a proxy and app from app provider communicates to a component behind the proxy, for example the IE Cloud Connector

    • If the proxy settings are not integrated into the app and the Edge Device is updated to the new proxy behavior, the external communication will respond with objections or errors respectively.
    • To prevent this, the proxy settings will be passed to the app via predefined environment variables and app providers must implement proxy support in their own apps and can read the proxy settings from the predefined environment variables.
    • Once Edge Devices are updated to the firmware version with the new proxy behavior, apps must be also updated to a newer version in which the proxy settings are integrated into the app itself.