Using the SSL Tunnels Service

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a cryptographic protocol for providing secure communications over TCP/IP networks. Using SSL enables you to securely exchange messages over public networks such as the Internet.

With the SSL Tunnels service, Mirth® Appliance by NextGen Healthcare you can accept SSL connections for any of the listener-based Mirth® Connect connector types such as HTTP, LLP/MLLP, SOAP, and TCP. You can also add SSL to the corresponding destination connectors.

Inbound tunnels accept an SSL connection from a remote host and pass it to the listening port of a Mirth® Connect channel on the local system. Outbound tunnels listen on a local port for a Mirth® Connect destination connector, add an SSL layer to the connection, and pass it on to a specific remote host.

Select Services > SSL Tunnels to open the SSL Tunnel Management window, which shows all of the currently configured tunnels on the system.

Select Add Tunnel to create an inbound or outbound SSL tunnel.

On the Add SSL Tunnel window, specify the Type of tunnel, Source Port, and Destination Port. For outbound tunnels only, you need to specify a Destination Host as well. Select Add when you are done.

To edit or delete an SSL tunnel, select the source port of the tunnel on the SSL Tunnel Management window. On the Edit SSL Tunnel window, you can modify the destination port on an inbound tunnel or the destination host and port for an outbound tunnel, or delete a tunnel.

To receive HL7 messages using HTTPS, first, create an HTTP listener as the source connector. Next, create an inbound SSL tunnel. Choose an arbitrary source port (NextGen Healthcare recommends 9000-9999), and then set the destination port to match the listener port. Communicate to the message sender which port you chose to use as their destination.

To send HL7 messages over HTTPS, first, create an outbound SSL tunnel. Choose an arbitrary source port (NextGen Healthcare recommends 9000-9999), and then supply the destination host and port of the recipient. Next, create an HTTP sender destination by using a URL in the form of http://localhost:<port>, where <port> is replaced with the source port you chose for your SSL tunnel.