Reverse Proxy with Apache2

Suppose that you already have a service tunning at 127.0.0.1:8080/docs, and you want it to make avaialable via 127.0.0.1/docs then we have to employ some url mappings. Following steps describes how to do this via apache2 server.

Install Apache2

apt-get install apache2

Get the module and dependencies.

apt-get install libapache2-mod-proxy-html libxml2-dev

Activate the modules

a2enmod proxy
a2enmod proxy_http
a2enmod proxy_ajp
a2enmod rewrite
a2enmod deflate
a2enmod headers
a2enmod proxy_balancer
a2enmod proxy_connect
a2enmod proxy_html

Modify the default configuration file

nano /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf

Add following as appropriate

   ProxyPreserveHost On
   ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:8080/
   ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:8080/
   ServerName localhost

Restart Apache2

sudo service apache2 restart or sudo apache2ctl restart

Test

Once restarted check typing localhost/docs if you get the same site which gives you when you type localhost:8080/docs then you have properly configured the reverse proxy.


For https

Activate the module
a2enmod _ssl

Add following to the default configuration file (/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf)

SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /home/path/to/ca.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /home/path/to/ca.key

ProxyPreserveHost On
SSLProxyEngine on

# Proxy path which user wants to map with actual backend
ProxyPass /myapp https://localhost:9443/app/
ProxyPassReverse /myapp https://localhost:9443/app/
ProxyPassReverseCookiePath /app /myapp

Restart Apahe2 and test similar to above setup.


Reference

[1] - https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-apache-http-server-as-reverse-proxy-using-mod_proxy-extension