An SSL bridge
configured on the NetScaler appliance enables the appliance to bridge all
secure traffic between the SSL client and the SSL server. The appliance does
not offload or accelerate the bridged traffic, nor does it perform encryption
or decryption. Only load balancing is done by the appliance. The SSL server
must handle all SSL-related processing. Features such as content switching,
SureConnect, and cache redirection do not work, because the traffic passing
through the appliance is encrypted.
Because the
appliance does not carry out any SSL processing in an SSL bridging setup, there
is no need for SSL certificates.
Citrix recommends
that you use this configuration only if an acceleration unit (for example, a
PCI-based SSL accelerator card) is installed in the web server to handle the
SSL processing overhead.
Before you
configure SSL bridging, first enable SSL and load balancing on the appliance.
Then, create SSL_Bridge services and bind them to an SSL_Bridge virtual server.
Configure the load balancing feature to maintain server persistency for secure
requests.