create a forward in Apache

digity · 08-27-2009, 12:02 PM

I have a dyndns hostname (example.dyndns.org) pointing to my web server (Ubuntu/Apache 2). I have another web server (tomcat) running on that same box on port 65123. how do I step up a folder/alias on the Apache server to point to the Tomcat server (example.dyndns.org/webapp forwards to example.dyndns.org:65123/webapp)?

bathory · 08-27-2009, 12:31 PM

You can do it with mod_rewrite. Add the following in tha apache config and restart the server:

Code:

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/webapp
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.dyndns.org:65123/webapp

If you have to enable mod_rewrite you can run:

Code:

sudo a2enmod rewrite

Regards

digity · 08-27-2009, 06:51 PM

i was able to enable mod_rewrite successfully but the forward didn't take. I put the code in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf and httpd.conf (restarted Apache between tries of course) and neither worked. Any ideas?

bathory · 08-28-2009, 12:17 AM

Since I'm not using Ubuntu, I suggest you to take a look at this post.
It looks like you have to edit /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default and add in DocumentRoot part (if not already there):

Quote:

Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride all

I guess that you can put the rewrite directives in the same file, or you can use a .htaccess, as in the example above (that's why the "AllowOverride All" is needed).

Regards

digity · 08-28-2009, 05:46 PM

Thanx! I got it working using mainly what you suggested. Here's how I got it working (in case anyone else is trying to accomplish this):

[1] I enabled mod_write with: sudo a2enmod rewrite
[2] Created the folder "webapp" in server document root (/var/www)
[3] Made the following changes to /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default:

- Changed "AllowOverride None" to "AllowOverride all" for the document root folder:

Code:

DocumentRoot /var/www
<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride all
</Directory>

- Added the following entry:

Code:

<Directory /var/www/webapp>
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride all
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>

[4] Created the file .htaccess in the webapp folder (/var/www/webapp/.htaccess) with the following content:

Code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hostname.dyndns.org:65123/webapp

[5] The ran <sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload> when I was done.