[Spyce-users] Apache as front end

[Howard, R. <roc...@am...>]

The Spyce documentation suggests using Spyce as a webserver perhaps with
Apache as a front-end server.
Here is the httpd.conf that I use (along with mod_proxy) to support that
approach on a dedicated Solaris box that I have at my disposal:

ServerRoot "/usr/local/apache2"
Listen 80
User myusername
Group mygroup
ServerAdmin my...@my...
UseCanonicalName Off
ProxyRequests Off
ProxyPass / http://localhost:8000/
ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8000/

Note that I built Apache2 with mod_proxy built-in statically. Loading
mod_proxy dynamically should work equivalently after adding the required
LoadModule directives in the config file.

Apache2 is launched as root so that binding port 80 is allowed. The
Spyce server is launched as myusername and mygroup (which is required
for some of the tasks that it performs.) All traffic to Apache is being
forwarded to the Spyce server with this setup. (Note that I have this
setup on an intranet server. There may be more to setting this up in a
secure manner on the internet.)


In the same vein, it looks like you can also easily set up the same
proxy settings as a virtual host:

NameVirtualHost *
<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName spyce.mymachine.mycompany.com
  ProxyRequests Off
  ProxyPass / http://localhost:8000/
  ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8000/
</VirtualHost>

With this approach, the Apache server can be set up to function normally
for the main domain (with a DocumentRoot and so forth) while sending all
subdomain requests (i.e., http://spyce.mymachine.mycompany.com/...) to
the Spyce server. (I haven't actually tried this approach yet, but I
will.)

There are plenty of other useful Apache options to consider when
frontending Spyce including logging, access control and more. I would be
interested in knowing what other people are doing with Apache
front-ending.

Rock