Apache 2 Configuration

After upgrading one of my private servers a little while ago I decided to expand upon the web-server that was being happily hosted on it for the last year or so. As I cannot find any sample configuration files online that do something similar to what this server does I present to you the configuration files that I used on my server. Hopefully they will be of use to somebody.

As most of the magic is done with virtual hosts the global Apache 2 settings were all left at default values with the exception of “NameVirtualHost” that was set to “*” to enable named-based virtual hosts for all connections.

/etc/apache2/apache2.conf <ApacheConf> 
1
NameVirtualHost *

It may be worth noting that the server runs Ubuntu Linux 6.10 Edgy where the Apache server program itself along with all required modules were installed using APT. As an added bonus of this all virtual hosts are stored in separate files by default for ease of use (Which I highly recommend as well), however nothing is stopping you from placing them all in a single file for your server. It’s your choice.

Default

Set the default virtual host to display one of two sites depending on whether it was accessed from an internal or external host.

/etc/apache2/sites-available/default <ApacheConf> 
 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
<VirtualHost *>
        ServerName www.example.com
        ServerAlias www.private.lan
        ServerAdmin admin@example.com

        DocumentRoot /var/www/default
        <Directory /var/www/default>
                AllowOverride All

                Order Allow,Deny
                Allow From All

                RewriteEngine On
                RewriteRule ^(public|private)/ - [L]
                RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^192\.168\. [OR]
                RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^10\.
                        RewriteRule ^(.*)$ private/$1 [L]
                RewriteRule ^(.*)$ public/$1 [L]
        </Directory>
        <Directory /var/www/default/private>
                AllowOverride All

                Order Deny,Allow
                Deny From All
                Allow From 127.0.0.1 192.168 10
        </Directory>

        ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
        CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Subversion

Create a Subversion repository that is accessible from the “svn” subdomain were the project is defined by the first directory (E.g. http://svn.example.com/project1) and use an AuthZ permission system.

/etc/apache2/sites-available/svn <ApacheConf> 
 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
<VirtualHost *>
        ServerName svn.example.com
        ServerAlias svn.private.lan
        ServerAdmin admin@example.com

        DocumentRoot /var/www/svn
        <Location /project1>
                DAV svn
                SVNPath /var/svn/project1

                AuthType Basic
                AuthName "Project 1"
                AuthUserFile /home/svn/permissions.passwd
                AuthzSVNAccessFile /home/svn/permissions.authz

                Require valid-user
        </Location>

        ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.svn.log
        CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.svn.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Trac

Create a subdomain dedicated to the Trac project management system called “trac” that uses the same directory structure and users as the Subversion.

/etc/apache2/sites-available/trac <ApacheConf> 
 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
<VirtualHost *>
        ServerName trac.example.com
        ServerAlias trac.private.lan
        ServerAdmin admin@example.com

        DocumentRoot /var/trac
        <Location /project1>
                SetHandler mod_python
                PythonHandler trac.web.modpython_frontend
                PythonOption TracEnv /var/trac/project1
                PythonOption TracUriRoot /project1/

                AuthType Basic
                AuthName "Project 1 Trac"
                AuthUserFile /home/svn/permissions.passwd

                Require valid-user
        </Location>

        ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.trac.log
        CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.trac.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Development Proxy

Proxy the contents of an separate server on the local area network that also has a hostname of “dev.example.com” that is defined on a local DNS server (As the other server will get an incorrect “HTTP_HOST” value if the hostnames are different) off the “dev” subdomain.

/etc/apache2/sites-available/dev <ApacheConf> 
 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
<VirtualHost *>
        ServerName dev.example.com
        ServerAlias dev.private.lan
        ServerAdmin admin@example.com

        <Proxy *>
                Order deny,allow
                Allow from all
        </Proxy>

        ProxyRequests Off
        ProxyPass / http://dev.example.com/
        ProxyPassReverse / http://dev.example.com/

        ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.dev.log
        CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.dev.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Comments

Now usually this is the place where you can submit your own reactions the the stuff I talked about above but due to time issues and my lazy personality I haven’t actually written the comment system yet. I will eventually get around to finishing it once I get my reader count back up to what it was in the early days but until then feel free to contact me with your response.