Apache proxy vhost to another machine or service

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Published: 26/07/2013 UTC

Updated: 26/07/2013 UTC

Recently I wanted to host some sites/services on my VPS but I didn't have the space. A solution to this that I found was to use the OpenVPN connection I have setup on my VPS and Apaches mod_proxy. Together, these services give me the ability to host larger applications and I can hide the real address (such as my home IP Address). Note: These are not critical/major websites as this connection would not be very reliable. I have found the speed to be quite decent, I would have thought it would be very slow but I have found it to be about as fast as a normal website.

How it works.

I have a VirtualHost setup of my VPS to catch hosts like "something.example.com". This gets picked up and forward to A machine such as "10.0.0.120". The machine at "10.0.0.120" also has a VirtualHost with the same domain set (if it does not match, it will run the default!) The machine at "10.0.0.120" will run the site like normal.

Enable Apache modules

Note: This may not be a full list

# a2enmod proxy_http
# a2enmod header

Example VPS vhost

<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
    <VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerName something.example.com

        # Uncomment if you want redirect from HTTP to HTTPS
        RewriteEngine on
        RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} ^80$
        RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{SERVER_NAME}$1 [L,R]
        CustomLog /var/log/apache2/something-access.log combined
        ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/something-error.log
    </VirtualHost>

    <VirtualHost *:443>
        ServerName something.example.com

        # Uncomment the following line to prevent redirects to http on https only vhosts
        RequestHeader set X-Forwarded-Proto "https"
        ProxyPass / http://10.0.0.120/
        ProxyPassReverse / http://10.0.0.120/
        ProxyPreserveHost On
        SSLEngine on

        # ADD SSL cert here etc
        CustomLog /var/log/apache2/something-access.log combined
        ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/something-error.log
    </VirtualHost>
</IfModule>

Example receiver vhost

This is a typical vhost with the same ServerName name as above (without the proxy or redirect code).

Credits/Sources

Gitlab Apache Recipe

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