Removing port 443 from urls generated by Sitecore

2 July 2019

For as long as I've been working on Sitecore there has been this really annoying issue where setting the link manager to include server url and running under https will cause urls to be generated with the port number included. e.g. https://www.himynameistim.com:443/ which naturally you don't actually want.

To overcome this there are a few methods you can take.

Method 1 - Set the Scheme and Port on you site defenition

This is possibly the smallest change you can make as it's just 2 settings in a config file.

Setting the external port on site node to 80 (yes 80) tricks the link manager code into not appending the port number as it does it for everything other than port 80.

1<configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/" xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform">
2  <sitecore>
3    <sites xdt:Transform="Insert">
4      <site name="website">
5        <patch:attribute name="hostName">www.MySite.com</patch:attribute>
6        <patch:attribute name="rootPath">/sitecore/content/MySite</patch:attribute>
7        <patch:attribute name="scheme">https</patch:attribute>
8        <patch:attribute name="externalPort">80</patch:attribute>
9      </site>     
10    </sites>
11  </sitecore>
12</configuration>

What I don't like about this method though, is your setting something to be wrong to get something else to come out right. It's all a bit wrong.

Method 2 - Write your own link provider

The second method which I have generally done is to write your own provider which strips the port number off the generated URL.

For this you will need:

1. A patch file to add the provider:

1<configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/">
2  <sitecore>
3    <linkManager defaultProvider="sitecore">
4      <patch:attribute
5          name="defaultProvider"
6          value="CustomLinkProvider" />
7      <providers>
8        <add name="CustomLinkProvider"
9             type="MySite.Services.CustomLinkProvider, 
10                         MySite"
11                       languageEmbedding="never"
12                       lowercaseUrls="true"
13                       useDisplayName="true"
14                       alwaysIncludeServerUrl="true"
15          />
16      </providers>
17    </linkManager>
18    <mediaLibrary>
19      <mediaProvider>
20        <patch:attribute name="type">
21          MySite.Services.NoSslPortMediaProvider, MySite
22        </patch:attribute>
23      </mediaProvider>
24    </mediaLibrary>
25  </sitecore>
26</configuration>

2. A helper method that removes the SSL port

1namespace MySite
2{
3    /// <summary> 
4    /// Link Helper is used to remove SSL Port 
5    /// </summary> 
6    public static class LinkHelper
7    {
8        /// <summary> 
9        /// This method removes the 443 port number from url 
10        /// </summary> 
11        /// <param name="url">The url string being evaluated</param> 
12        /// <returns>An updated URL minus 443 port number</returns> 
13        public static string RemoveSslPort(string url)
14        {
15            if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(url))
16            {
17                return url;
18            }
19
20            if (url.Contains(":443"))
21            {
22                url = url.Replace(":443", string.Empty);
23            }
24
25            return url;
26        }
27    }
28}

3. The custom link provider which first gets the item URL the regular way and then strips the SSL port

1using Sitecore.Data.Items;
2using Sitecore.Links;
3
4namespace MySite
5{
6    /// <summary>Provide links for resources.</summary> 
7    public class CustomLinkProvider : LinkProvider
8    {
9        public override string GetItemUrl(Item item, UrlOptions options)
10        {
11            // Some code which manipulates and exams the item...
12
13            return LinkHelper.RemoveSslPort(base.GetItemUrl(item, options));
14        }
15    }
16}
17

4. The same provider for media

1using Sitecore.Data.Items;
2using Sitecore.Resources.Media;
3
4namespace MySite
5{
6    /// <summary> 
7    /// This method removes SSL port number from Media Item URLs 
8    /// </summary> 
9    public class NoSslPortMediaProvider : MediaProvider
10    {
11        /// <summary> 
12        /// Overrides Url mechanism for Media Items 
13        /// </summary> 
14        /// <param name="item">Sitecore Media Item</param> 
15        /// <param name="options">Sitecore Media Url Options object</param> 
16        /// <returns>Updated Media Item URL minus 443 port</returns> 
17
18        public override string GetMediaUrl(MediaItem item, MediaUrlOptions options)
19        {
20            var mediaUrl = base.GetMediaUrl(item, options);
21            return LinkHelper.RemoveSslPort(mediaUrl);
22        }
23    }
24}

What I don't like about this method is it's messy in the opposite way. The port number is still being added, and we're just adding code to try and fix it after.

Credit to Sabo413 for the code in this example

Method 3 - Official Sitecore Patch

Given that it's Sitecore's bug, it does actually make sense that they fix it. After all people are paying a license fee for support! This simplifies your solution down to 1 extra patch file and a dll. What's better is as it's Sitecores code they have the responsibility of fixing it, if it ever breaks something, and you have less custom code in your repo.

You can get the fix here for Sitecore version 8.1 - 9.0.

So this may leave you wondering how did Sitecore fix it? Well having a look inside the dll reveals they wen't for method 2.