What is SSL Offloading on Load Balancer?
SSL offloading means that all HTTPS traffic is decrypted on the Load Balancer and passed to the backend servers in plain HTTP. This means all layer 7 actions are completed on the traffic before passing it to the backend hosts.
SSL offloading can significantly increase the performance of your secure Web servers, thus improving customer experience. However, offloading means the SSL connection extends only from the client to the load balancer, not from client to server.
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Encryption often requires a lot of computer processing. That can be a drag on already busy web servers. But what if you could separate the intense processing of encryption from the heavy workload involved in sending and receiving web page traffic? That’s the primary purpose of SSL offloading.
When information is transmitted through SSL secure protocol, the webserver acts to encrypt or decrypt your web traffic. This process assigns a substantial load on the web server, which will affect its performance. To do away with the added burden of encrypting data on the server, many networks now employ SSL offloading. The solution involves removing SSL encryption from incoming traffic before it reaches the webserver. SSL offloading takes care of the encryption/decryption process on a separate device so that it doesn’t affect the web server’s performance. The idea behind SSL offloading is to do encryption operations anywhere other than on the web server. That could mean a separate machine or a different processing device on the same machine. In short, SSL offloading is specially designed to perform SSL acceleration or SSL termination.
Benefits of SSL Offloading
- The SSL offloader unit offloads the SSL handshaking task that involves both encryption and decryption-the two main tasks that bog down the computing power of the web application.
- The device completes the handshaking of SSL quicker than the web server. This results in smooth loading of the website and faster processing of requests at the end of the web application.
- It may also aid in HTTPS inspection, reverse proxy, traffic control, persistence of cookies, etc., depending on what kind of SSL load balancer you have installed at your end.
- HTTPS inspection is another most important point to use for SSL load-balancer. We understand how important encryption is, but it is a double-edged sword – attackers could be hiding and encrypting malicious code.
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Automation of SSL Offloading
AppViewX enables the application users/NetOps teams to automate SSL offloading by exposing a simple yet intuitive UI.
Create a Virtual server on the F5 load balancer with the client SSL profile by entering the following details.
1. Virtual server name
2. Virtual server IP
3. Port
4. Pool name
5. Load-balancing method
6. Pool members (Add the web server IP, Port)
7. Client SSL profile
8. Upload cert & key
AppViewX communicates with the appropriate F5 device intelligently through multiple modes like tmsh, iControl APIs, AS3, etc., to create the virtual server along with the Client SSL profile.
Automation of SSL offloading via AppViewX is as simple as the above form looks. With hundreds of implementations already in production, our expert team will help set up the readily available solution on large enterprise networks looking to automate SSL offloading.
Give AppViewX a spin for free.
Tags
- F5 ADC
- F5 Automation
- F5 Load Balancer
- SSL Certificate Renewal
FAQs
Benefits of SSL Offloading
This results in smooth loading of the website and faster processing of requests at the end of the web application. It may also aid in HTTPS inspection, reverse proxy, traffic control, persistence of cookies, etc., depending on what kind of SSL load balancer you have installed at your end.
What are the benefits of SSL offloading? ›
Improved Server Performance: SSL/TLS offloading reduces the processing burden on servers by moving SSL/TLS encoding/decoding functions away from busy web servers to specialized devices. This allows the web servers to dedicate important CPU resources to other application processing tasks, which can improve performance.
How to configure SSL offloading in F5? ›
Click on virtual servers as shown below! Now into the configuration section select the http profile and select the ssl client (default profile) from available to select. Now scroll down and select the default pool as pool http as shown below and click on finished.
What is the difference between SSL bridge and SSL offloading F5? ›
SSL bridging: The Load Balancer decrypts incoming HTTPS traffic, and re-encrypts it when sending to the backend server. SSL offloading (aka SSL termination): The Load Balancer decrypts incoming HTTPS traffic, and sends it to the backend server unencrypted.
Do I need SSL offloading? ›
Any owner of a website that handles a lot of encrypted data should consider SSL offloading. It is a way of freeing up web servers so that they can focus on their primary tasks.
What is the difference between SSL pass through and offloading? ›
In the SSL passthrough process, the encrypted (HTTPS) traffic reaches the backend server directly without being decrypted at the load balancer. In the SSL offloading process, all the encrypted (HTTPS) traffic is decrypted at the load balancer before proceeding to the backend server.
What are the benefits of offloading? ›
Facilitating Healing: Offloading promotes optimal conditions for wound healing by reducing pressure-induced trauma, enhancing blood flow, and fostering tissue regeneration. This can significantly expedite the healing process and improve outcomes for wound patients.
What are the steps of SSL offloading? ›
Two of the most common types of SSL offloading are: With SSL bridging or proxying, the application delivery controller handles SSL session initiation and decrypts the client requests then re-encrypts the requests before passing them on to the servers and vice versa when the server replies to the client.
What is the difference between SSL termination and offload? ›
SSL Offloading, also known as SSL termination or SSL decryption, is a technique where SSL traffic is decrypted at the load balancer and then forwarded to the backend servers as unencrypted HTTP traffic.
What is SSL persistence in F5? ›
SSL persistence ensures that repeat connections from the same client are sent to the same node. This allows the use of SSL session resumption, which saves processing time for both the client and the server.
3-) SSL passthrough: It means that F5 only load balances traffic at TCP level and SSL ends on Servers. You should NOT add clientSSL and serverSSL profile. You CANNOT use http profile, therefore you CANNOT optimize layer 7 traffic. Cookie persistency CANNOT be used.
How to configure SSL in F5? ›
Installing the SSL Certificate
- Launch the F5 BIGIP web GUI.
- Under Local Traffic select "SSL Certificates."
- Click on the name you assigned to the certificate under "General Properties" while creating the CSR.
- Browse to the your_domain_name. crt file that you received from DigiCert.
- Click "Open" and then "Import."
SSL offloading is the process of removing the SSL-based encryption from incoming traffic to relieve a web server of the processing burden of decrypting and/or encrypting traffic sent via SSL. The processing is offloaded to a separate device designed specifically for SSL acceleration or SSL termination.
How to decrypt SSL traffic in F5? ›
Decrypt with tcpdump --f5 ssl¶
- SSH using Putty into the BIG-IP01 box.
- Enable the tcpdump. ...
- Now when you take a packet capture you need to add --f5 ssl to the end of your command like this: ...
- Now that the packet capture is running open Chrome and click on the Hackazon link and browse around the website.
Benefits of SSL Acceleration and Offload
Another significant benefit of offloading SSL processing to a load balancer is that it provides a single, centralized point of control and management. Certificates and private keys only need to be managed in one place rather than on multiple servers.
Why do we need snat in F5? ›
When the default route on the servers does not route responses back through the BIG-IP system, you can create a secure network address translation (SNAT). A secure network address translation (SNAT) ensures that server responses always return through the BIG-IP® system.
What does turning off SSL do? ›
No SSL means no online security is enabled on your website. SSL certificate is a digitally signed certificate that provides online security to sensitive data. It encrypts communication that is happening between the client browser and the webserver.
