topic Links (.URL files) do not use FQDN!? in Alfresco Archive

Links (.URL files) do not use FQDN!?

back0rifice — Fri, 18 May 2007 10:08:09 GMT

Hi,We are facing a problem concerning the .url files, as we created some links within the web interface. The problem is that these files only contain the server name, but not its FQDN. Clients which don't have the DNS suffix set properly end up with not being able to navigate to the specified folder

Re: Links (.URL files) do not use FQDN!?

seraphon — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 06:54:42 GMT

Hi

i m also interested in that facet of Alfresco.
Is there really no way for a user to log in without having to know the hostname and the ports he's using?
I'm saying this because it is not very user-friendly to have to enter
http://<hostname>ort/alfresco
I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to internet/intranet connections but I think there should be a way to make an url that when it is entered it would redirect the user to the good hostname and port and thus allowing access to Alfresco.

As you could have guess, it is my boss who was quite reluctant to the obligation of entering the ID of the host of Alfresco's app server in order to use Alfresco.
Hope I was clear enough.

Regards Seraphon

Re: Links (.URL files) do not use FQDN!?

mikeh — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 10:43:46 GMT

Hi,

Yes - this is possible. One way is as follows:

Find tomcat/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/web.xml and add the following lines

<welcome-file-list>
  <welcome-file>redirect.html</welcome-file>
</welcome-file-list>‍‍‍

Now create a new file at tomcat/webapps/ROOT/redirect.html containing

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL=http://mike01:8080/alfresco/">‍

This will mean anyone browsing to http://server:8080/ will get redirected to the Alfresco application.

You can also configure Tomcat to listen on port 80 in addition to 8080 as follows:

Find and open the tomcat/conf/server.xml file. Copy the entire <Connector> element, but change the port to 80. Now restart Tomcat and it will be listening on both ports. Note that this configuration isn't very standard, because you'd usually have Apache listening on port 80.

Now when your users browse to http://server they will be redirected to http://server:8080/alfresco/

Thanks,
Mike

Re: Links (.URL files) do not use FQDN!?

seraphon — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 08:03:18 GMT

Hi

Thanks for the solution.
It works nicely but isnt it a problem that we have to change something in the tomcat/webapp file?
I ve read often in this forum that it is not recommended to do any change in there. Well maybe because here the changes are very light and can be done while the server tomcat is running, it is not problematic.

The trick about making tomcat listen on the port 80 works but I dont understand the mechanism behind. Plus you say that usually Apache is working on port 80 so wouldnt there be a problem of conflict or something?

This solution works but what is really important is to know if its stable and wont bring troubles in the future for other applications.

Regards
Seraphon

Re: Links (.URL files) do not use FQDN!?

mikeh — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 09:32:37 GMT

Hi,

The solution I suggested assumes Alfresco is the only webapp running on your Tomcat server and that you're not using Apache in front of Tomcat (a common deployment scenario, but one which isn't necessary).

All the modifications do is redirect someone arriving at http://server/ to http://server:8080/alfresco/. Because the redirect happens at the client and not the serevr, I don't foresee any problems - the client is still effectively starting from the port 8080 address as far as Alfresco is concerned.

Thanks,
Mike