Using Apache with virtual hosts and mod_proxy

I probably should add that I ended up resolving this.

Confluence runs in the back-end, listening on localhost (127.0.0.1) port 8080.

An Apache sits in front of it, listening on port 80, configured with a number of virtual hosts (vhosts).

One vhost, known as "confluence.domain.name", just proxies all content, with the "ProxyPass" and "ProxyReverse" directives above. We use it for our internal updates etc.

Another vhost, which is our public web site, has a series of mod_redirect RewriteRules, which catch references to known Confluence content, and run it through a proxy. As a result, anything which does not match a redirect rule, is served by the vhost from it's DocumentRoot. This means that we can have a single web site which contains our Confluence content, plus non-confluence content, like PHP applications etc.

I obtained the Confluence redirections by checking through the Apache access logs and error logs. The downside is that if new versions of confluence add new URLs, they won't work until I spot them in our Apache vhost error log. I ended up with about 40 Redirections. I could have used less specific wildcards to reduce that number, but it's a matter of personal taste.

The vhost has stuff like:

ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8080/
RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^(/+)(display/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]

RewriteRule ^(/+)(admin/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(bootstrap/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(dashboard/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(dwr/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(display/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(decorators/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(download/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(exportword)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(includes/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(images/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(label/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(labels/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(pages/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(plugins/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(renderer/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(s/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(setup/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(spaces/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(styles/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(themes/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(users/)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]

RewriteRule ^(/+)(addpersonalspacetofavourites.action)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(addprofiletofavourites.action)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(administrators.action)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(attachmentnotfound.action)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(browsepeople.action)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(colourpicker.action)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]

RewriteRule ^(/+)(dopeopledirectorysearch.action)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(dosearchsite.action)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(forgotusername.action)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(forgotuserpassword.action)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(fourohfour.action)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(homepage.action)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(login.action)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(logout.action)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(peopledirectory.action)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(removepersonalspacetofavourites.action)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(removeprofilefromfavourites.action)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]

RewriteRule ^(/+)(editpage-javascript)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(labels-javascript)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^(/+)(wysiwyg-javascript)(.*) http://localhost:8080/$2$3 [P,QSA,L]

I'm not sure if the QSA is necessary. I'm also not sure if the (/+) is needed - I had some problems with some URLs which had "//" in them.

On the confluence General Admin page, I changed the Server Base URL from http://localhost:8080/ to the public name of my site, since I found that sometimes localhost URLs were leaking out. I also modified the Confluence 404 page (edit the confluence/WEB-INF/classes/com/atlassian/confluence/core/ConfluenceActionSupport.properties) and customised the Apache vhost 404 error page (via the HTTP_NOT_FOUND.html.var file).

I hope this helps someone else.

Edit: forgot to un-wikify the rules...

andy

The not busted formatting:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  DocumentRoot /srv/confluence
  ServerName wiki.example.com
  ServerAlias wiki.example.com

  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteRule ^/(.*) https://%{SERVER_NAME}/$1 [R,L]
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>
  DocumentRoot /srv/confluence
  ServerName wiki.example.com
  ServerAlias wiki.example.com

  <Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
  </Directory>
  
  <Location /server-status>
    SetHandler server-status
    
    Order Deny,Allow
    Deny from all
    Allow from 127.0.0.1 192.168.0.0/255.255.0.0
  </Location>

  <Proxy *>
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
  </Proxy>

  #ProxyRequests Off
  ProxyPreserveHost On 

  LogLevel info
  ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/wiki-error.log
  CustomLog /var/log/apache2/wiki-access.log combined

  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteLog /var/log/apache2/wiki-rewrite.log
  RewriteLogLevel 0

  RewriteRule ^/server-status$ /server-status$1 [L]

  RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ http://127.0.0.1:8080/$1 [P,QSA,L]
  ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:8080/

  SSLEngine on
  SSLProtocol all
  SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/example.crt
  SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/example.key

</VirtualHost>

Hi,

We had some issues with strange URI escaping issues, particularly around redirects at the login page.

May i know if you still encountering the problem? If that is the case, please raise a support ticket at here for further investigation.

Regards,
Choy Li

Hi,

You can change the port 8080 to use port 80 instead. Thus, you dont need to use 8080 to access your Confluence. Also, you need to change the configuration of https.conf accordingly. If my explanation does not answer your question. Please feel free to raise a support ticket to:

* http://support.atlassian.com

Cheers,

Hi,

I am having the same setup, and have not gotten it to work. could you please share with me about your result?

Thanks,

Tina

It's working for JIRA because JIRA and APACHE have the same path / : 

 ProxyPass / http://localhost:8080/

 ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8080/

While for your confleunce you have /confluence path of the application and / path for APACHE:

ProxyPass / http://localhost:8081/confluence/

ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8081/confluence/

So to fix it you have to modify your application's path in confluence_installation_files/conf/server.xml

<Context path="/confleunce"

remove the confleunce; you should have <Context path="/"

and then modify your APACHE conf also by removing the /confleunce/ from the proxyPass, it should become :

ProxyPass / http://localhost:8081/

ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8081/

Don't forget to restart apache and confleunce

Best Regards,