Sub Directory to a different server - apache

Is it possible to for a domain e.g. www.myclient.com to have a sub directory hosted on a completly different (our) server?
They don't want to point subdomain.myclient.com to our servers so they want it as folder www.myclient/subdomain/
Thanks in advance.

As discussed in the comments, your only option is a Proxy. Everything else (Like mod_rewrite / Alias) will do a header redirect, and expose the target address to the user.
However, Apache's proxying doesn't seem to be that complicated. The most basic example is
ProxyPass /mirror/foo/ http://backend.example.com/
Note that a proxy will of course double your traffic, because every byte requested will have to be fetched from the remote machine.

There are two different mechanisms that you might be able to use to accomplish this. What you use will depend on the setup you have as well as what permissions you have on the server from the hosting company if this is not a dedicated server.
The first option is to map to the second server using the file system, then use mod_alias to point the subdirectory to the mapped location. This requires that the two servers be networked together, for instance if you have one server dedicated to a specific server, but own and can safely network the servers at the file system level.
Another option would be to set up Apache to act as a proxy. This does require some advanced programming to configure but the system can be set up so that requests to the specified subfolder would be passed on to the remote web server. This can be used when the remote server can't be networked at the file system level, but lets you simulate the workings of a remote subdomain.

Could you use Amazon CloudFront because it can map different paths to differnt servers ?

Related

Is nginx needed if Express used

I have a nodeJS web application with Express running on a Digital Ocean droplet.The nodeJs application provides back-end API's. I have two react front-ends that utilise the API's with different domains. The front-ends can be hosted on the same server, but my developer tells me I should use another server to host the front-ends, such as cloudflare.
I have read that nginX can enable hosting multiple sites on the same server (i.e. host my front-ends on same server) but unsure if this is good practice as I then may not be able to use cloudflare.
In terms of security could someone tell me If I need nginx, and my options please?
Thanks
This is a way too open-ended question but I will try to answer it:
In terms of security could someone tell me If I need nginx, and my
options please?
You will need Nginx (or Apache) on any scenario. With one server or multiple. Using Express or not. Express is only an application framework to build routes. But you still need a service that will respond to network requests. This is what Nginx and Apache do. You could avoid using Nginx but then your users would have to make the request directly to the port where you started Express. For example: http://my-site.com:3000/welcome. In terms of security you would better hide the port number and use a Nginx's reverse proxy so that your users will only need to go to http://my-site.com/welcome.
my developer tells me I should use another server to host the
front-ends, such as cloudflare
Cloudflare does not offer hosting services as far as I know. It does offer CDN to host a few files but not a full site. You would need another Digial Ocean instance to do so. In a Cloudflare's forum post I found: "Cloudflare is not a host. Cloudflare’s basic service is a DNS provider, where you simply point to your existing host.".
I have read that nginX can enable hosting multiple sites on the same
server
Yes, Nginx (and Apache too) can host multiple sites. With different names or the same. As domains (www.my-backend.com, www.my-frontend.com) or subdomains (www.backend.my-site.com, www.my-site.com) in the same server.
... but unsure if this is good practice
Besides if it is a good or bad practice, I think it is very common. A few valid reasons to keep them in separated servers would be:
Because you want that if the front-end fails the back-end API continues to work.
Because you want to balance network traffic.
Because you want to keep them separated.
It is definitively not a bad practice if both applications are highly related.

Access external url on web server

If I log in to our web server using RDP, I can't access any of the sites we run on that web server via their external url. For example, say my web server hosts www.example.com, when I log in to the web server, bring up a browser and try to go to www.example.com, I can't see it.
However, one of our sites was configured in some way to work like this, if I try to go to that url, it works as you might expect.
Unfortunately, this was done by our server hosting partners, who we are no longer in contact with. Does anyone know how this can be achieved?
You can do it in many way..
It depends on your network configuration, but it could also be a simple row in hosts file or a static dns record or a specific route for that ip address.
if you're using IIS you should also set the website to "listen" on the loopback interface in the bindings menu.
or, for IIS 6:

Error with DOJO when using IP

Strange error with an Project using dojo:
if i call : http://localhost/project everything works like expected.
if i call : http://127.0.0.1/project everything works like expected.
if i call : http://192.168.2.1/project i get the following error (ONLY in IE6!):
"Bundle not found, locale.."
Any ideas?
Iam running Zend Server CE with PHP 5.2
if i add: 192.168.2.1 to "hosts" it works (windows)
Sounds like Zend server is performing some kind of virtual site support using the site name as a partial domain.
I can't say 100% if/how it is beacuse I don't use Zend, but I can explain the principle using Apache as an Example.
There are 3 ways in which a web site can be virtually hosted under a single web server application, this applies to most servers on the market today, Apache, IIS, nginx and many others.
It all boils down to one thing, giving one running server application instance the ability to host multiple individual websites.
The 3 methods of seperating sites are as follows:
By IP address : If you have multiple IP addresses (Usually -but not always beacuse you have multiple network interface cards) then you can tell your server application to listen to one IP for one site, another IP for another site and so on. If you browse to one IP you'll get one site, and likewise the other on the other IP.
By Port Number : If your using only one IP address, then you can bind to multiple port numbers, port 80 is generally the default for web servers, but by browsing to an address and pinning the port number on the end (http://mysite.com:99) you'll force the browser to use that port. You can then have multiple websites listening on different ports and select them manually at browse time as required.
By Host Name Header: This is by far the most common way of supporting multiple sites, all web servers that understand the HTTP/1.1 protocol have to obey a header field in the request that contains the host name, when a request comes in for EG: http://mysite,com/ then there will be an entry in the request header that looks like 'Host: mysite.com' the webserver can then use that to say, oh yes.. I know which one that is.. and it then selects and serves the correct website.
The problems start to arise however when you start to use IP addresses that generally cannot be resolved or have no DNS name, because the web server then doesn't know which hostname to tag it to.
As an example in Apache, if you set up a virtual host, then try to browse that server using just the IP address, you'll get the default server, which in many cases won't even be configured to respond correctly or display anything.
To compound this, going up to web application layer, many frameworks also do their own checks on hostnames and other variables passed to them by the web server, and many make decisions on how to operate based on this information.
If you've gotten to the default web application by IP address, then there's a high chance that the framework may get confused at being presented with an IP address as a host name.
As the OP noted, in many cases, you can add a name to your hosts file and use this as a poor man's DNS substitute, the file to modify can be found in the following locations:
c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\ - on windows
and
/etc/
on Linux/Unix
The file is generally just called 'hosts' and is a plain text file. Adding a line like:
123.456.789.123 myserver
Will tie http://myserver/ to http://123.456.789.123/
If you can, and your doing a lot of web applications it may be worth setting up your own DNS server, most Linux distros will allow you to install 'Bind' and I do also believe there is a version available for windows too.
I'm not going to go into the pro's and cons of private DNS servers here, it's a whole other subject in itself, but if your likely to be doing a lot of additions to your hosts, then in the long run you'll find it a better option.

Domain Name Server on Windows for locally hosted websites

I have a half-dozen domains (with associated domain names), hosted locally on Windows/Apache and accessible to the wider internet. At the moment, the name servers are provided by my domain name register at extra cost. I would like to host a domain name service (on the same machine as is hosting the websites).
I have tried BIND without success, I was unable to configure it correctly. I was confused about zones and the syntax of configuration, as well as how to test if it is configured correctly!
Most guides seem directed at users who wish to replicate DNS entries for local caching, whereas I simply want to host a name server (locally) which directs users to my local machine, when they request any of the half-dozen websites I host.
Is there a simple application to host limited Domain Name Service this on Windows (Vista Business), or an obvious tutorial that I haven't found yet? Or was I on the right track with BIND and missing something?
Bind is probably the best choice. The guides you're referring to are talking about configuring a caching resolver. What you want is an authoritative name server. Bind can be a pain to configure because there are so many options, but it's probably worth persevering.
Depends what your budget is..
The DNS Server on Windows 2003 Server is pretty good and easy to configure.
There's a bunch of alternatives list here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_DNS_server_software
Simple DNS Plus could maybe do the trick for your case, but I haven't tried it.
Another option is maybe to use Bind and try to find a GUI for it, there's a few existing, usually web based, like webmin and such...

How do I configure Apache to forward some URLs to two resin containers?

I have two resin servers - r-server-a and r-server-b. I created two because both have web applications that need to be in the root context path '/' (and using same port '80').
However, both web applications need to see each other (i.e. access the other application's resources & pages). Which is why I thought I'd use an apache server to handle the two.
How do I do that?
What you need is mod_proxy in Apache, in the apache config (like the virtual host config) put:
ProxyPass / http://localhost:8080/<web-app context root>/
ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8080/<web-app context root>/
Both using same port means not the same IP. that might be same machine two instances each bound to one NIC or two separate machines. This is not that clear from the question, however, it does not matter for that much.
For several reasons I would pick NGINx as a reversed proxy (instead of apache) and configure it accordingly.
See at tornado's documentation how they do that for tornado (in that case, 4 instances on each server) and copy the concept to your location. Good luck.