VPN problem

[Steve Workings]

We've put in a great deal of effort trying to get AA to work with a VPN proxy for China customers. Kinda at a dead end with our Alibaba engineer, and I don't think we should be.

Has anyone provided access to an app with SSL VPN web mode?

Basically, we're getting a couple of javascript errors that allow much, but not all of the page to load.

Any help much appreciated - we've sunk a ton of investment into this.

Thanks

[peteconway]

Sounds like a permissions thing. Also just wanted to say thanks for the things you have helped users and me with this year. Stay Safe.

[WebDesignShop]

Haven't had to do that. However, Just as an FYI. For a client years ago on a regular web app (custom job of course) we had to make it work with multiple domains, one of which had to be purchased and hosted out of China. Then it used a shared database. They wouldn't let us do it otherwise.

[Steve Workings]

Thanks. We're getting all the connections, the login loads and works, and the main UX loads afterwards as we want. But two embedded UX components do not load, producing javascript errors instead. Interestingly, it appears that the various parts that not load produce Chrome console errors all pointing to the same thing.

Uncaught SyntaxError: missing ) after argument list
at Function._eval (a5-64885436.js:256)
at a5-64885436.js:254

The javascript this points to is this. I really don't know what to do with or about it:

this.transport.setRequestHeader('X-Requested-With','XMLHttpRequest');for(var i=0;i<this.headers.length;i++)this.transport.setRequestHeader(this.headers[i][0],this.headers[i][1]);this.transport.send(this.data);},onChange:function(){if(this.transport.readyState==4&&this.transport.status==200){var func=this.handle;var funcContext=this.handleContext||func;var context=this;if(func)setTimeout(function(){return func.call(funcContext,context.transport);},10);if($a._def[''+this.initCallback])setTimeout(fgt_sslvpn.eval_rewrite(Function('$a._def[\''+this.initCallback+'\'](); delete $a._def[\''+this.initCallback+'\'];')),20);var obj=this.fill;if(obj)setTimeout(function(){return $svs(obj,context.transport.responseText);},10);}else if(this.transport.readyState==4&&this.transport.status==408&&this._secondChance){$a.lastCallback=new Date().getTime();this._secondChance=false;this.request();}else if(this.transport.readyState==4&&this.transport.status!=200){var func=this.errorHandle;var funcContext=this.errorHandleContext||func;var context=this;if(func)setTimeout(function(){return func.call(funcContext,context.transport);},10);var obj=this.fill;if(obj)setTimeout(function(){return $svs(obj,context.transport.responseText);},10);}},getTransport:function(){trans=false;try{trans=new XMLHttpRequest();}catch(err){if(window.ActiveXObject)trans=new ActiveXObject('Microsoft.XMLHTTP');}

[pettechservices]

Steve,

Is there any chance that the pages/components are using external JS located outside your domain - causing their client PC to be trying to access the JS (or really any external library) at another host that is blocked? I hope that made sense.

[pettechservices]

If the VPN connection is configured to direct ALL internet traffic through the VPN tunnel, then this shouldn't be the cause...however if the tunnel is configured to say "only send the web app IP related traffic" via the tunnel, this may be causing a failure along the way...

[Steve Workings]

Thanks so far. We've passed on some of these thoughts to the Alibaba engineer who responded with below. This makes no sense to us. Does our app's use of externally-called javascript libraries maybe have anything to do with this as suggested here?

According to my test, your application doesn’t support proxy service which I used Squid to do the test. You can ask for help on diagnosis on proxy service instead of VPN . Web mode VPN uses proxy service instead of VPN tunnel.

My proxy server is still live. So configure your browser with the proxy server and shows it to your support team. Or you can ask your team to setup a proxy server to test your application.

Many enterprises use proxy server in their intranet, so working under proxy server is important for your application.

[Steve Workings]

Possibly related question then: Is there a way to capture or derive a list of libraries and resources used by a web app? For instance, we use WalkMe so that's an external library but if you look closely, you'll see their javascript calls yet other/more external resources. We have a list of about 40 or 50 external resources we're aware of / have discovered but may be missing a couple. And, we're not sure if additional time on this matter will actually solve our problem with an Alibaba VPN.

[WebDesignShop]

Hi Steve, I think you need to walk through the application, and each step along the way capture the resulting html and see if there are outside sources being used. If people have to login to your application then a regular SEO tool won't work. There are a lot of link checkers out there which will tell you of external links, but I think you'll have to check each page of the app as you are using it.

[Steve Workings]

Thanks. We've whitelisted everything we can find - and it's a long list. Can you recommend a link checker or other tool to help us find what we might be missing?

[CharlesParker]

I noticed that there is a gettime function in the call. Where would the function get "time"? does it refer to server time or internet time? In other words does the JS make a call to get internet time? - Now that withstanding, one other thing you could try in trying to figure out exactly where the fail is would be to throttle your connection using dev tools. In other words, choose a very slow connection and then watch as things come in and MAYBE just MAYBE you'll be able to see where in the stack the fail is occurring. I am probably way off the mark here but since you still haven't figured it out why not try something from left field? One last thing, what version of the server are you running? If it is the "current" version (as of today - 7295_5548) why not revert back to 7086 or a previous known working version and see if that same error appears. This is my suggestion because anytime I see the line number 256 in an AA js file I start looking at either a missing ";" on my part or something I did, or a bug in AA. Next step would be to see if the embedded component will run on it's own page without error. I hope you solve it!

[Steve Workings]

Thanks. I've followed all the advice above plus more, and am 95% convinced the problem is in the javascript constructing the A5.ControlBar with the class.create() function. This happens when embedded objects are loaded into the UX. So instead of getting the correct result, I just get the "Wait..." gif where the embedded objects are supposed to load. None of my design uses the A5.ControlBar.

This works fine outside the VPN, but I can't find anything malfunctioning, not loading or otherwise not available while in the VPN.

[CharlesParker]

can you eliminate the need to embed it by opening it via button click in a dynamic panel?

[Steve Workings]

This is a huge app built over the years and works well outside of this VPN. And no, I need dynamic menus for instance, which is one of the two embedded loading problems I have on the opening panel.

[CharlesParker]

still, taking a stab at it here, do you have an explicit alias defined? Do any other embedded components NOT fail?