Apache - serving to external hosts from a computer on my internal network

Khang · 01-23-2005, 07:25 AM

Hi, I hope I chose the right forum for this.

Here's my current setup: I have two computers - let's call them A and B - and a router exposed to the Internet. The router is configured to forward all requests on port 80 to computer B, so currently computer B is handling all webserving. Computer B is always on.

Computer A is only on when I'm using it, however I'd like this computer to be able to act as a webserver sometimes when it's switched on. Is there some way I can configure Apache on computer B to forward some requests (e.g. ones using a certain URL) to Apache on computer A, which somehow then sends the stuff back to the client through computer B again?

Or maybe that's not how it's done... But is there a way to achieve what I'm trying to describe?

Not sure if I explained that very well at all, but I hope it made sense. Can anybody explain whether this is possible, and if so how to do it?

Steve Cronje · 01-23-2005, 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Khang
Hi, I hope I chose the right forum for this.

Not sure if I explained that very well at all, but I hope it made sense. Can anybody explain whether this is possible, and if so how to do it?

Here's a pointer:

I don't know too much about this, but you need to research URL-rewriting, adn possible virtual hosts, in Apache.

HTH
Steve

Khang · 01-23-2005, 02:20 PM

Thanks for the reply.

I think I get the URL rewriting and virtual hosts stuff. I know how to configure things so that a single server serves numerous sites according to the URL requested. What I don't know is how to involve other servers on my network that cannot themselves be connected to on port 80 from the outside world (only from within my network).

Demonbane · 01-24-2005, 12:05 AM

You can do it with virtualhosts + reverse proxy, here's is a sample configuration:

Code:

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName www.sever2.com
ProxyPass / http://server2/
ProxyPassReverse / http://server2/
</VirtualHost>

the same can be achieved with mod_rewrite

Khang · 01-24-2005, 05:10 PM

Thanks a lot, I got it working. Just a little tip for anybody else running Debian who may stumble upon this thread having the same problem as me, you might need to alter the settings in /etc/apache2/mods-available/proxy.conf before things work as they should.

(The mods-available, mods-enabled thing is Debian-specific right? I think so).