Confluence reverse proxy configuration

[Deleted user]

I want to configure a proxy server for our Confluence and Jira servers, following the instructions on https://confluence.atlassian.com/kb/proxying-atlassian-server-applications-with-apache-http-server-mod_proxy_http-806032611.html

The URL http://chiani.company.domain/docs which should proxy to the confluence server doesn't give either data nor error - the screen stays blank, no error log entries for apache.

My configuration at the proxy server:

Apache 2.2 with the following VirtualHost (company.domain and restricted.domain stand for the real domain names):

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName chiani.company.domain

    ProxyRequests Off
    ProxyVia Off

#    <Proxy *>
#         Require all granted
#    </Proxy>

    ProxyPass /docs http://abgconfluence.restricted.domain:8090
    ProxyPassReverse /docs http://abgconfluence.restricted.domain:8090

    ProxyPass /jira http://abgjira.restricted.domain:8080
    ProxyPassReverse /jira http://abgjira.restricted.domain:8080

</VirtualHost>

In the server.xml I didn't find the exact line as described in the atlassian page. My context in /opt/atlassian/confluence/conf/server.xml is as follows:

<Server port="8000" shutdown="SHUTDOWN" debug="0">
    <Service name="Tomcat-Standalone">
        <Connector port="8090" connectionTimeout="20000" redirectPort="8443"
                maxThreads="48" minSpareThreads="10"
                enableLookups="false" acceptCount="10" debug="0" URIEncoding="UTF-8"
                protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol"
                proxyName="chiani.company.domain"
                proxyPort="80"
                scheme="http" />

        <Engine name="Standalone" defaultHost="localhost" debug="0">

            <Host name="localhost" debug="0" appBase="webapps" unpackWARs="true" autoDeploy="false" startStopThreads="4">
                <Context path="/docs" docBase="../confluence" debug="0" reloadable="false" useHttpOnly="true">
                    <!-- Logger is deprecated in Tomcat 5.5. Logging configuration for Confluence is specified in confluence/WEB-INF/classes/log4j.properties -->
                    <Manager pathname="" />
                    <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.StuckThreadDetectionValve" threshold="60" />
                </Context>

                <Context path="${confluence.context.path}/synchrony-proxy" docBase="../synchrony-proxy" debug="0" reloadable="false" useHttpOnly="true">
                    <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.StuckThreadDetectionValve" threshold="60" />
                </Context>
            </Host>

        </Engine>

            <Host name="localhost" debug="0" appBase="webapps" unpackWARs="true" autoDeploy="false" startStopThreads="4">
                <Context path="/docs" docBase="../confluence" debug="0" reloadable="false" useHttpOnly="true">
                    <!-- Logger is deprecated in Tomcat 5.5. Logging configuration for Confluence is specified in confluence/WEB-INF/classes/log4j.properties -->
                    <Manager pathname="" />
                    <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.StuckThreadDetectionValve" threshold="60" />
                </Context>

[Deleted user]

It works now!

I installed Apache 2.4 for Apache 2.2 and I found an error in my vhost configuration: I forgot to set the folder in both parameters.

ProxyPass /docs http://abgconfluence.restricted.domain:8090/docs
ProxyPassReverse /docs http://abgconfluence.restricted.domain:8090/docs

ProxyPass /jira http://abgjira.restricted.domain:8080/jira
ProxyPassReverse /jira http://abgjira.restricted.domain:8080/jira

[Danyal Iqbal]

cheers mate!

[Deleted user]

ok. Thank you so far. I will try to upgrade the proxy server to Apache 2.4.

[Danyal Iqbal]

Is jira accessible?

Did you confuigure base url for confluence to the url served by apache.

Did you Restart apache and httpd.?

have a look at the httpd error_log.

Your configuration looks ok. make sure you have enabled the proxy_mod.

Which confluence version is this?. apache 2.2 won't work with confluence 6.0 or later.

[Deleted user]

Here the answers to your questions:

Is jira accessible?

I wanted to begin with confluence. I haven't yet done the configuration for Jira in the server.xml file, so Jira is still accessible on its original server. On the proxy server it is redirected to Jira_server:8443 (the Jira URL is displayed instead of the proxy's URL).

Did you configure base url for confluence to the url served by apache.

I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by this. The address given in "ProxyPass /docs http://abgconfluence.restricted.domain:8090" is the URL where confluence was running before I edited the server.xml file.

Did you Restart apache and httpd?

Yes, I did 'service apache2 restart' which restarts httpd.

have a look at the httpd error_log.

This is strange. The error_log shows nothing, but the access_log shows a 404 result. Edge displays a 404 error, Firefox doesn't display anything (the inspector shows an empty page with <body></body>

Your configuration looks ok. make sure you have enabled the proxy_mod.

As it shows a redirection for Jira it must be active.

Which confluence version is this?. apache 2.2 won't work with confluence 6.0 or later.

Well, that may be the problem. I am using Confluence V6.7.1! So are they really incompatible?

[Danyal Iqbal]

Well, that may be the problem. I am using Confluence V6.7.1! So are they really incompatible?

Yes.  Applications that use Synchrony, e.g. Confluence 6.0, must use Apache 2.4.10 and up.

The other stuff is not relevant at the moment.

[Deleted user]

Even if you do not plan to use Synchrony?

[Danyal Iqbal]

Yes, as far as I know, it might be possible to have limited success e.g only http access and no https might be possible even with 2.2 coz apache 2.4 only contains newer/better mods that the app might requrie.

A quick google search should reveal a detailed documentation reference somewhere.

[Deleted user]

Sorry for the mess in the block quotes above. The part from <Host name ... to </Context> is double (I had problems with the input window).

I left out the directive "Require all granted" as this seems to be only for Apache 2.4.

My Confluence Version is 6.7.1. Both servers are on SuSE Linux SLES12.