Confluence-Installation behind Apache Webserver

Problem:

• On the server there's already an apache listening on port 80
• Confluence deployed on Tomcat 5.5 (listening on port 8080, but who wants a URL:8080).
• Internal URL: http://localhost:8080/confluence
• External URL: http://example.com/confluence

Solution

Quite a few pages, even Atlassian themselves, write a lot about using the Apache module mod_proxy. Even together with an Atlassian support person (yes, they offer full support, even if you paid only 5$) I didn't succeed.

For some strange reasons some certain ressources (certain CSS and JS) weren't delivered (404) while others were ok.

The Apache-Tomcat-Connector mod_jk took just a few steps to success though. It is using the Apache JServ Protocol (AJP), which I never heard about so far.

install mod_jk

apt-get install libapache2-mod-jk

load and configure mod_jk (/etc/apache2/mods-enabled/jk.load)

LoadModule jk_module /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_jk.so
JkWorkersFile /etc/apache2/workers.properties
JkLogFile /var/log/apache2/mod_jk.log
JkOptions +ForwardKeySize +ForwardURICompatUnparsed -ForwardDirectories
JkRequestLogFormat "%w %V %T"

configure Tomcat (conf/server.xml)

<Connector port="8009" 
  protocol="AJP/1.3" 
  redirectPort="8443" 
  minSpareThreads="5" 
  maxThreads="256" 
  URIEncoding="UTF-8" 
  enableLookups="false"
/>

configure worker (/etc/apache2/workers.properties)

worker.list=worker1
worker.worker1.host=localhost
worker.worker1.port=8009
worker.worker1.type=ajp13

configure Apache vhost

<VirtualHost *>
    ServerName example.com
    CustomLog /var/log/apache2/example.com.log
    JkMount /confluence worker1
    JkMount /confluence/* worker1
</VirtualHost>