Running DSpace on Apache HTTPD and Tomcat using the mod_jk connector
For some background on why you'd want to do this, and the principles behind
the configuration, see pages on Securing DSpace and Running DSpace on Standard Ports.
Note: These instructions are for Linux, and may be somewhat specific to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.2.3-52 and the following software versions (but hopefully they are still helpful for other distros)
- DSpace 1.3.x and above
- Apache HTTPD 2.0.46
- Tomcat 5.5.9
Anyone who has successfully set up mod_jk
connector under different conditions should feel free to add their notes!
- Instructions for Gentoo Linux can be found at http://gentoo-wiki.com/index.php?title=HOWTO_Apache2_and_Tomcat5&redirect=no
Step 1 - Check if mod_jk is installed
Check to see if the mod_jk
connector is installed. Most likely (at least on Red Hat), it should be in /etc/httpd/modules/
. However, you can try to locate it using the following command:
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locate mod_jk |
If there is no response, then mod_jk
is not installed. Otherwise, if it is installed, you can obviously skip the next step!
Step 2 - Install mod_jk from source
(1) Login as the root user. (or someone with "root"-like privileges)
(2) Before trying to build mod_jk
, you must make sure you have the following pre-requisite programs installed (use the which
command to check for each):
libtool
(ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/libtool)autoconf
(http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/autoconf)ant
(http://jakarta.apache.org/ant/)
ant
should already be installed (since it's necessary for DSpace). Iflibtool
orautoconf
are missing (both should be in/usr/bin
), download the source and compile using the following commands:Code Block ./configure make make install
(3) In addition, you must have the Apache Web Server development tools installed. A quick way to check for this is to check for the APache eXtenSion tool (apxs
). It should probably be in /usr/sbin
, if installed:
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which apxs |
If apxs
is missing, you can use the following command in Red Hat to install the httpd-devel
RPM as root (Other distros may need to find and install this RPM through other means):
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up2date -i httpd-devel |
(4) Download the latest mod_jk
source from the Tomcat Download site http://jakarta.apache.org/site/downloads/downloads_tomcat.html.
(5) Unzip the contents into your home directory:
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gunzip -c jakarta-tomcat-connectors-1.2.14.1-src.tar.gz | tar -xvf - |
(6) Configure the connectors with the path to the apxs
file on your system:
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cd jakarta-tomcat-connectors-1.2.14.1-src cd jk/native ./configure --with-apxs=/usr/sbin/apxs |
(7) Build mod_jk
with the following command:
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make |
(8) Assuming all went well, the mod_jk.so
file will be created in the apache-2.0
subdirectory. You need to copy this file to Apache's shared object files directory (e.g. /etc/httpd/modules/
). From the same jk/native
directory run the following:
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cp apache-2.0/mod_jk.so /etc/httpd/modules |
(9) In addition, copy the sample workers.properties file to the Apache configuration directory (e.g. /etc/httpd/conf/
). Assuming you are still in the jk/native
directory, run the following commands:
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cd ../conf cp workers.properties /etc/httpd/conf |
Step 3 - Configure workers.properties
Once the mod_jk
connector has been installed, you will have to configure Apache to use this connector to communicate with Tomcat. First, modify the existing workers.properties
file (should be in /etc/httpd/conf/
, or whereever you copied it to in Step 2 above):
You will need to modify the following Tomcat and Java home directories:
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workers.tomcat_home=tomcat workers.java_home=java |
In addition, you may need to uncomment (and possibly change) the JVM for Unix:
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# Unix - Sun VM or blackdown worker.inprocess.jvm_lib=$(workers.java_home)$(ps)jre$(ps)lib$(ps)i386$(ps)server$(ps)libjvm.so |
Note: initially the path above was java/jre/lib/i386/classic/libjvm.so
However, the correct path of the libjvm.so
(at least for Red Hat) is java/jre/lib/i386/server/libjvm.so
(i.e. "server/libjvm.so
", not "classic/libjvm.so
")
Step 4 - Configure mod_jk connector
Next, you need to create a configuration file for the mod_jk
module (alternatively, you could just add the following configuration directly into your Apache httpd.conf
. I just like to separate things out a bit). In the /etc/httpd/conf.d/
directory (or whatever directory holds your external configuration files, which httpd.conf
loads), create a file called jk.conf
which has the following content (make sure to edit any paths so they are valid on your server!):
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# # Use the JK Module to connect to Tomcat Instance # # Load mod_jk module LoadModule jk_module modules/mod_jk.so # Where to find workers.properties JkWorkersFile /etc/httpd/conf/workers.properties # Where to put jk logs JkLogFile /var/log/httpd/mod_jk.log # Set the jk log level debug/error/info JkLogLevel info # Select the log format JkLogStampFormat "%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y " # JkOptions indicate to send SSL KEY SIZE, #JkOptions +ForwardKeySize +ForwardUICompat -ForwardDirectories # Found that these options were necessary with Apache 2.2: JkOptions +ForwardKeySize +ForwardUIEscaped +ForwardDirectories # JkRequestLogFormat set the request format JkRequestLogFormat "%w %V %T" # Send all requests for /dspace context to worker ajp13 # Note: ajp13 is defined in workers.properties and # uses the AJP 1.3 Protocol JkMount /dspace/* ajp13 # ... and ditto if you want OAI JkMount /dspace-oai/* ajp13 #For extra security, deny direct access to any WEB-INF and META-INF directories <LocationMatch "/WEB-INF/"> AllowOverride None Deny from all </LocationMatch> <LocationMatch "/META-INF/"> AllowOverride None Deny from all </LocationMatch> |
The big thing to pay attention to is the context which you specify in JkMount
! If you specify /dspace/*
, then only requests to http://my-host-name/dspace/*
will be forwarded to Tomcat! However, if you specify /*
, then all requests to http://my-host-name/*
will be forwarded to Tomcat.
You can get a little tricky by doing something like:
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# Send all requests for root context / to worker ajp13 # Note: ajp13 is defined in workers.properties and # uses the AJP 1.3 Protocol JkMount /* ajp13 # Use SetEnvIf to set "no-jk" when /cgi-bin/ is encountered. # This is necessary so that /cgi-bin/ scripts # are run in Apache (and not forwarded to Tomcat). SetEnvIf Request_URI "/cgi-bin/*" no-jk # Set "no-jk" for /anotherApp/ as well (so it is run from Apache) SetEnvIf Request_URI "/anotherApp/*" no-jk |
Notice, first you specify that all requests should be forwarded to Tomcat. But, then for specific UI's you can specify to ignore mod_jk
(using the no-jk
environment variable). So, the above specifies that everything except paths matching http://my-host-name/cgi-bin/*
or http://my-host-name/anotherApp/*
are forwarded to Tomcat.
Step 5 - Configure Tomcat
Next, you need to take a look at the Tomcat server.xml
configuration file (in the /conf
} subdirectory, whereever Tomcat is installed). Ensure that the following AJP 1.3 Connector is uncommented:
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<!-- Define an AJP 1.3 Connector on port 8009 --> <Connector port="8009" UIEncoding="UTF-8" tomcatAuthentication="false" enableLookups="false" redirectPort="8443" protocol="AJP/1.3" /> |
Make sure that the port
specified corresponds to the port you defined for the ajp13
worker (this port number is defined in the workers.properties
file, as shown above). In addition, make sure the UIEncoding
is set to UTF-8
, and tomcatAuthentication
is set to false
(assuming you want authentication taken care of in Apache rather than Tomcat). Finally, make sure you set the redirectPort
to be the port that Tomcat is running on (usually either 8443, for HTTPS, or 8080, for HTTP).
Step 6 - Restart everything and Test!
Restart Tomcat and Apache!
Now, test the connection between Apache and Tomcat. You should now be able to get to DSpace whether you specify port 8080 (for Tomcat) or not. For example, the following URLs should bring you to the same DSpace (you may need to replace localhost with your server path):
Hopefully everything works for you! If it doesn't, ask questions to the dspace-tech@lists.sourceforge.net DSpace-Tech mailing list. If you find any problems with the above instructions, feel free to edit and enhance them!