Lost in security settings. SSL / Proxies / Web Adaptors, oh my!

[MegPeterson]

Hi all -

As someone who came up working with data and maps and is now charged with deployment and security, I find myself feeling lost under the hood. Can someone refer me to any beginners documentation on how everything actually works together?

I've installed Portal for ArcGIS behind our firewall for web map development and am using WAB Dev. Edition for app creation for our staff's internal use. But in the near future I will also need to deploy applications hosted by Amazon for the general public, and I'm trying to understand the security and deployment options for both scenarios.

As an example, I'm getting confused on the roles of the Web Adaptors, Proxies and SSL / CA certificates. I'm fine to follow the instructions for deployment, I just like to understand *why* things are set up the way they are.

Many thanks, Meg

[JacobBoyle]

This is a great start: Portal Best Practices for setup?

Here's a document Derek Law put together, great reference as well: http://www.esri.com/~/media/Files/Pdfs/news/arcuser/0114/PortalforArcGIS.pdf

Amazon will add a level to the deployment, but here's a list of the questions you identified above:

• Web Adapter acts as a Reverse Proxy, you install it and it handles the proxy role, you can install it to your external facing server.
• SSL in a production environment should use CA-signed certificates.  a CA signed certificate is from a third party that verifies that you are who you claim you are.Certificate authority - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[MegPeterson]

Thank you Jacob!

We were using a self-signed certificate but just purchased a CA-signed which has cleared up some problems already.

I'm going to review the Portal docs above as well as follow the proxy set up from this link to get our internal sites up and going.

Internal ONLY Web Map Sharing Issues

If you run across any docs on developing applications behind the firewall and then deploying them publically via Amazon that would be incredibly helpful.

Thanks again, Meg

[DerekLaw]

Hi Meg,

Another resource that may help in your "ArcGIS Server security education",

ArcGIS Server and Portal for ArcGIS: An Introduction to Security | Esri Video

Hope this helps,

[MegPeterson]

Thank you Derek!