Interesting Apache+Tomcat Conundrum

[Michael Bentley]

On Feb 11, 2007, at 1:29 AM, James Bucanek wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> Running OS X Server 10.3 on an Xserve.
>
> I'm trying to set up some discussion forums for an existing web  
> site. The forum software and site use JSP running Tomcat. So far,  
> so good.
>
> I'm trying to get the forum software to run in its own domain as  
> though it was its own web site: i.e. http://forums.domain.net/
>
> My problem is ports. Tomcat is running on port 9006. Virutal hosts  
> in OS X run on port 16080 (why, I don't know). If I try to  
> implement this using just ProxyPass it doesn't work because it  
> simply changes the URL to http://jsp.domain.net:9006/, which is ugly.
>
> I tried to do this by simply mapping all requests to Tomcat via  
> 'JKMount /*', but this doesn't help because redirects generated by  
> the webapp go to http://forums.domain.net:16080/ because that's the  
> port the servlet thinks it is running on. The redirected request  
> times out because port 16080 isn't accessible from the outside world.
>
> I tried adding ProxyPassReverse directives, but they apparently  
> don't rewrite redirects.
>
> So either I end up with ugly URLs with port numbers in them, or the  
> client gets back URLs that die trying to send to port 16080.
>
> Does anyone know a way out of this?

You can use a new IP address for your forums site (I think).  Try this:

- go to System Preferences > Network
- select Network Port Configurations from the 'Show:' popup
- click New
- Choose Built-in Ethernet from the 'Port:' popup
- Choose your new alias ethernet port from the 'Show:' popup
- configure the port
- configure your forum server to listen on the new port

If you don't want to use System Preferences, you can create an alias  
with /sbin/ifconfig -- but the next time you reboot, you'll lose the  
alias unless you create a StartupItems script for it ( http:// 
docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106418 ).

At any rate, once you have your second IP address working, get it set  
up in DNS and your troubles may be over ;-)

hth,
Michael