Skip to main content

How do you create an Apache Reverse Proxy with mod_proxy?

Daniel Pearsall
  • Updated

Question

What is an Apache Reverse Proxy? What do I need to do to create one?

Answer

A reverse proxy receives a client's requests for a website, redirects those requests to a different destination, such as a different port, and returns the content at that destination as if it were the original destination requested by the client.

This is useful for forwarding requests to an application other than Apache, or another server, while still using your Apache server to serve requests. Node.js is commonly configured this way, with Node running as a service, and a Reverse Proxy setup in Apache to handle HTTP and HTTPS requests.

To utilize mod_proxy, you'll need access to WHM. You'll need to create an include with the required values. Here is an example that also works with AutoSSL:

read -p "Domain: " -ra domain </dev/tty; mkdir -p \
/etc/apache2/conf.d/userdata/ssl/2_4/$(/scripts/whoowns $domain)/$domain/include.conf \
&& nano /etc/apache2/conf.d/userdata/ssl/2_4/$(/scripts/whoowns $domain)/$domain/include.conf \;
ProxyPass /.well-known !
ProxyPass / http://ip:port/
ProxyPassReverse / http://ip:port/

Resources

mod_proxy (Apache Docs)

How to use Apache Includes to add Configuration Directives to a specific domain's VirtualHost

Related articles