Proxying Atlassian server applications with Apache HTTP Server (mod_proxy_http)

This page explains how to establish a network topology in which Apache HTTP Server acts as a reverse proxy for Atlassian server applications. The page has been written as a recipe for success – we recommend you follow it step by step.  

 You might consider using a reverse proxy when you want users to access the Atlassian applications: 

• at their own domains, such as    http://my<atlassianapp>.com/
• at subdomains of another domain, such as http://my<atlassianapp>.ourcompany.com/
• at context paths on either a domain or subdomain, such as http://ourcompany.com/my<atlassianapp>
• on different HTTP ports, such as 9800, 9850, etc.

For more complex scenarios, you can refer to the Apache HTTP Server documentation, consult with an Apache specialist in your organisation, ask a question on Atlassian Answers or contact one of our Atlassian Experts.

The instructions on this page apply to the following Atlassian server applications:

• JIRA server applications (JIRA Software Server, JIRA Core, JIRA Service Desk)
• Confluence Server (there are some additional steps and examples in this guide for Confluence 6.0 and later)
• Bamboo Server
• Bitbucket Server
• Fisheye
• Crucible
• Crowd

In the examples that follow on this page, <atlassianapp> refers to the name of any of the Atlassian server applications above.

Atlassian server applications bundle a web server, which allows them to run without needing a proxy server. For most Atlassian applications, the bundled web server is Apache Tomcat  (Fisheye and Crucible use  Jetty ). Consequently, you need to configure both Tomcat (or Jetty if using Fisheye or Crucible) and Apache HTTP Server when proxying an Atlassian application.

Prerequisites

You'll need the following:

Apache version 2.2 or 2.4 installed

You may find it helpful to refer to the Apache HTTP Server Documentation, which describes how you can control Apache HTTP Server by editing the httpd.conf file. The section on Apache Module mod_proxy is particularly relevant. Note that any changes you make to the httpd.conf file will only be effective after restarting Apache HTTP Server. (Applications that use Synchrony, e.g. Confluence 6.0, must use Apache 2.4.10 and up.)

DNS entries in place and configured for your domains

You should check, perhaps with your system or network administrator, whether the current DNS configuration for your organization will need changes to support the proxy topology you wish to set up.

The Atlassian applications installed, and accessible through a web browser

Install the Atlassian applications in the usual way.

Part A. Configure the Atlassian applications

This section describes how to configure the Tomcat (or Jetty) web server bundled with each Atlassian application to run behind a reverse proxy.

<Context path="" docBase="${catalina.home}/atlassian-<atlassianapp>" reloadable="false" useHttpOnly="true">

<Context path="/<contextpath>" docBase="${catalina.home}/atlassian-<atlassianapp>" reloadable="false" useHttpOnly="true">

3. Configure the Connector directive

If you're using Fisheye or Crucible, configure the proxy host, proxy scheme and the proxy port from the Admin area. See Configuring the Fisheye web server.

If you're using any of the other Atlassian server applications, configure the Connector directive as follows.

For each application, find the normal (non-SSL) Connector directive in the Tomcat <jira-install>/conf/server.xml file, and add the scheme,  proxyName, and proxyPort attributes inside the Connector directive, as below. Use the default values for the other attributes, including for  port , unless you have a particular reason to change them, and use your own domain name for the proxyName value:

<Connector port=<default>
	maxThreads=<default>
    minSpareThreads=<default>
    connectionTimeout=<default>
    enableLookups=<default>
    maxHttpHeaderSize=<default>
    protocol=<default>
    useBodyEncodingForURI=<default>
    redirectPort=<default>
    acceptCount=<default>
    disableUploadTimeout=<default>
	proxyName="<subdomain>.<domain>.com"
	proxyPort="80"
	scheme="http"/>

Note that the proxyName parameter should be set to the FQDN that Apache HTTP Server will be configured to serve. This is the address a user would type into their browser to access the application. For example:

• use <atlassianapp>.ourcompany.com to access the application at a sub-domain like http://<atlassianapp>.ourcompany.com
• use ourcompany.com to access the application at a context path like http://ourcompany.com/<atlassianapp>. In this case, the context path should not be included in the proxyName parameter, and you would have already set the Context directive in step 2 above.

For more information about configuring the Tomcat Connector, refer to the Apache Tomcat 7.0 HTTP Connector Reference.

Part B. Configure Apache HTTP Server

Atlassian recommends that you use the mod_proxy module, which implements a proxy, gateway or cache for Apache while also allowing multiple virtual hosts on a single client.

For more information about mod_proxy see:

• The mod_proxy_html site has documentation and examples.
• The Apache Week tutorial that describes a complex situation involving two applications and ProxyHTMLURLMap.

1. Enable the mod_proxy modules in Apache

If necessary, enable the required modules in Apache as follows:

$ sudo a2enmod proxy_http
Considering dependency proxy for proxy_http:
Enabling module proxy.
Enabling module proxy_http.
To activate the new configuration, you need to run:
  service apache2 restart

$ sudo a2enmod proxy_wstunnel
$ sudo a2enmod rewrite

LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so 
LoadModule proxy_connect_module modules/mod_proxy_connect.so 
LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so

2. Configure virtual hosts using mod_proxy

If you are running a single Atlassian application behind an Apache reverse proxy, use a virtual host block with the following directives:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName <subdomain>.<domain>.com
     
    ProxyRequests Off
    ProxyVia Off
     
    <Proxy *>
         Require all granted
    </Proxy>
 
    ProxyPass /<contextpath> http://<internal_domain>:<port>/<contextpath>
    ProxyPassReverse /<contextpath> http://<internal_domain>:<port>/<contextpath>
</VirtualHost>

• Note that for CentOS, the preferred approach is to add the virtual host block to a separate configuration file for each application in /etc/httpd/conf.d/, for example named confluence-vhost.conf and jira-vhost.conf.
• Note that for Debian, the preferred approach is to add the virtual host block to a separate configuration file for each application in  /etc/apache2/sites-available/<site>, for example named  confluence.conf and/or jira.conf. These should be based on the default template, 000-default.conf.

ProxyPass /<contextpath> http://<internal_domain>:<port>/<contextpath>/
ProxyPassReverse /<contextpath> http://<internal_domain>:<port>/<contextpath>/

If you have multiple applications running behind the same proxy, you can use name-based virtual hosts:

• Use a single name-based virtual host if the Atlassian applications are under the same domain but have different context paths. For example:

  <VirtualHost *:80>
      ServerName mycompany.com
       
      ProxyRequests Off
      ProxyVia Off
       
      <Proxy "*">
           Require all granted
      </Proxy>
   
      ProxyPass /jira http://<internal_domain>:8080/jira
      ProxyPassReverse /jira http://<internal_domain>:8080/jira
   
      ProxyPass /bitbucket http://<internal_domain>:7990/bitbucket
      ProxyPassReverse /bitbucket http://<internal_domain>:7990/bitbucket
  </VirtualHost>

• Use multiple name-based virtual hosts if each application is on a different domain. For example:

  <VirtualHost *:80>
      ServerName myjira.com
       
      ProxyRequests Off
      ProxyVia Off
       
      <Proxy *>
           Require all granted
      </Proxy>
   
      ProxyPass /jira http://<internal_domain>:8080/jira
      ProxyPassReverse /jira http://<internal_domain>:8080/jira
  </VirtualHost>
   
  <VirtualHost *:80>
      ServerName mybitbucket.com
       
      ProxyRequests Off
      ProxyVia Off
       
      <Proxy *>
           Require all granted
      </Proxy>
   
      ProxyPass /bitbucket http://<internal_domain>:7990/bitbucket
      ProxyPassReverse /bitbucket http://<internal_domain>:7990/bitbucket
  </VirtualHost>

If you're using Confluence 6.0 or later with Synchrony (which is required for collaborative editing),  you'll need to use Apache 2.4.10 or later...

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName myconfluence.com
	ProxyRequests Off

	# Auth changes in 2.4 - see http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/upgrading.html#run-time
	<Proxy *>
		Require all granted
	</Proxy>

	ProxyPass /synchrony http://<internal_domain>:8091/synchrony
	<Location /synchrony>
		Require all granted
		RewriteEngine on
		RewriteCond %{HTTP:UPGRADE} ^WebSocket$ [NC]
		RewriteCond %{HTTP:CONNECTION} Upgrade$ [NC]
		RewriteRule .* ws://<internal_domain>:8091%{REQUEST_URI} [P]
	</Location>

	ProxyPass / http://<internal_domain>:8090/
	ProxyPassReverse / http://<internal_domain>:8090/
	<Location />
		Require all granted
	</Location>
</VirtualHost>

For full details about configuring virtual hosts and how to use each directive see https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/vhosts/.

3. Restart Apache

Debian and Ubuntu

Restart Apache from the command line using:

$ sudo service apache2 restart

Fedora and CentOS

Restart Apache from the command line using:

$ sudo apachectl graceful

You can also use systemd to restart Apache. On CentOS, for example, use:

$ sudo systemctl restart httpd.service

Windows

You can stop and start the Apache service by going to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services , look for "Apache2" and select it. Now, on the menu bar select the stop button (square) and wait for the status of the service to change to 'Stopped'. Once the service has stopped select the start button (triangle) and wait for the status to change to 'Started'.

4. Modify the CentOS SELinux policy

For CentOS, the SELinux policy blocks httpd from connecting with the network by default. In this case you'll see a "permission denied" message in the httpd error_log similar to this:

[Sat Mar 19 00:29:45.722758 2016] [proxy:error] [pid 5958] (13)Permission denied: AH00957: HTTP: attempt to connect to 127.0.0.1:8090 (localhost) failed

You need to manually modify the SELinux policy for the httpd process using the following command:

$ sudo /usr/sbin/setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect 1

5. Enable the X-Forwarded-For header

This is an optional step that ensures the origin IP (ie the user connecting to the proxy) is sent to the Atlassian application rather than the proxy IP. This is useful for trying to track down who is submitting requests, as otherwise the reverse-proxy can mask their IP. If this change is done, access logs will record the IP of the client, and also the proxy, rather than just the proxy. To do so:

1. Enable the mod_remoteip module.

2. Add the below to the appropriate virtual host:

   RemoteIPHeader X-Forwarded-For

3. Restart / Reload Apache.

Part C. Final configuration

Restart each application

Now, restart each application and ensure you can access them using new URLs. See the stopping and starting instructions above.

Set the application Base URL

For each Atlassian application, set the Base URL to the address you configured in the proxy, which is the URL that Apache HTTP Server will be serving (such as  http://www.example.com/<atlassianapp > ).

Disable HTTP compression

Running compression on both the proxy and Tomcat can cause problems when integrating one Atlassian application with another. We recommend disabling HTTP compression for JIRA applications and Confluence:

• JIRA applications – see  Configuring Jira application options.
• Confluence – see Compressing an HTTP Response within Confluence.