topic Re: Access Alfresco by Domain Name in Alfresco Archive

Access Alfresco by Domain Name

mrudmann — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 03:38:50 GMT

Hi,I have been scouring these forums for a good answer to this. Seems others have that same question, but I have yet to find a decent solution.I would like to access my Alfresco from a web browser by typing http://www.myalfrescosite.com, instead of typing http://www.myalfrescosite.com:8080/alfresco

Re: Access Alfresco by Domain Name

alexander — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 07:40:50 GMT

I think, it is best to proxy Alfresco through Apache for this.

1) In most cases Apache already has mod proxy installed.
in this case add something like this to httpd.conf file (or domain files if you are using more advanced config):

ProxyPass /alfresco http://127.0.0.1:8080/alfresco
ProxyPassReverse /alfresco http://127.0.0.1:8080/alfresco‍‍

2) Then you may want make root app to redirect to your /alfresco subfolder if user just enters IP address. Edit tomcat\webapps\ROOT\index.jsp to have this lines only:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
    <head>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url=/alfresco">
</head>
</html>
‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Then you need to disable pre-compiled page in web.xml in ROOT\WEB-INF.
Comment out these lines:

    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>org.apache.jsp.index_jsp</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>org.apache.jsp.index_jsp</servlet-class>
    </servlet>

    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>org.apache.jsp.index_jsp</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/index.jsp</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Hope this helps - it worked for me.

Alternative for 1), if you run on windows or as root is to change tomcat to run on port 80 in server.xml (just search for 8080 and change it.)

Re: Access Alfresco by Domain Name

mrudmann — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 10:38:28 GMT

Thanks for the feedback!

I have been trying that proxy approach through httpd. I am running apache 2.0.54 and Alfresco 1.4 with tomcat.

I placed those proxy lines, similar to the ones you mention, in my httpd.conf as shown below. However, when I web to the ServerName http://www.mydomain.com/alfresco, I get an error message stating:

Forbidden, "You don't have permission to access /alfresco on this erver."

Any ideas why this is happening?

Thanks!
-Matt

— snip of httpd.conf —

<virtualhost 10.0.0.2:80>
        ServerName http://www.mydomain.com
        DocumentRoot /opt/alfresco/tomcat/webapps/ROOT
        ProxyRequests off
        ProxyPass /alfresco http://10.0.0.2:8080/alfresco
        ProxyPassReverse /alfresco http://10.0.0.2:8080/alfresco
        ProxyPreserveHost On
</virtualhost>

Re: Access Alfresco by Domain Name

alexander — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 11:11:47 GMT

Unfortunately, I am not Apache specialist, so not sure which statement is responsible for error. I did it globally, and just these 2 lines worked for me.

BTW, part 2) of what I wrote above was used on windows when changing Tomcat port to 80. In case of proxy simple HTML file, placed in document root, should be enough.

Re: Access Alfresco by Domain Name

mrudmann — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 11:29:17 GMT

Was there a specific location in httpd.conf where you placed the proxy lines?

Re: Access Alfresco by Domain Name

mrudmann — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 15:46:25 GMT

Good news! I got the first part, proxy, to work. I needed to specify the machine IP namein the proxypass and proxypassreverse lines.

Now, as for step 2, there is a lot os "stuff" in the index.jsp file you mention. I see things like font information, header information, etc.

Are you saying that in your proposed step 2, the ONLY lines in this index.jsp can be the ones you mention? What about all of that other info in this file? Is it needed?

Thanks!
-Matt

Re: Access Alfresco by Domain Name

alexander — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 17:16:03 GMT

Hi

As I mentioned before, in case of proxy you will not require changing index.jsp, as your root application is not proxied (only /alfresco).

It means, if user accesses your server by domain name, it can be served simple index.html file with only lines I mentioned (meta refresh). It should probably be placed in DocumentRoot location (does not need to be anywhere in tomcat - make sure Apache has a right to access it)

Re: Access Alfresco by Domain Name

mrudmann — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 17:29:45 GMT

I see the first batch of lines above that you mention to include:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url=/alfresco">
</head>
</html>

These aren't the lines that belong in the index.html file you mention…are they? Can you reiterate the lines that belong in this index.html file I will create?

Thanks!
-Matt

Re: Access Alfresco by Domain Name

alexander — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 18:14:48 GMT

Hi

File can contain just single line:
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url=/alfresco">

It will instruct browser immediately request "/alfresco" from the server.

Other lines just for HTML standard compliance (meta should be in head element)

Re: Access Alfresco by Domain Name

mabayona — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 19:03:18 GMT

IÂ´m using mod_jk together with Apache. This the right way of doing it. You can find it in:

http://tomcat.apache.org/download-connectors.cgi

(Use mod_jk and NOT mod_jk2).

Re: Access Alfresco by Domain Name

mabayona — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 19:04:42 GMT

… using mod_jk there is NO NEED to modify any configuration file in Alfresco. Apache does all the redirection magic.

Re: Access Alfresco by Domain Name

mrudmann — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 18:51:13 GMT

Thanks for the feedback!

I looked at the documentation on mod_jk.

1) Can I implement mod_jk such that my users will only need to type in my.domain.com at browser address bar?

2) If so, do I simply need to make the configuration changes in the workers.properties file?

3) If so, can you perhaps provide me with an idea as to what the entries in workers.properties would look like? I just see an example of port redirection and I am uncertain as to where/how I would remove the need for the addition of /alfresco at the end of the user-supplied url.

Thanks!!

Re: Access Alfresco by Domain Name

mrudmann — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 19:08:49 GMT

Alexander,
Just wanted to let you know that I applied your method and it worked very nicely.

However, I am still interested in the mod_jk technique. I will apply this on my test server to see how the implementation goes.

Thanks all!!