Troubles with Apache reverse proxy while trying to run CMS in a subdirectory

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Hello,

Thank you for those who viewed this posting. We have figured the issue with attempting to move the CMS down a directory, off of the web root, using an Apache reverse proxy.

I am submitting my solution here as I know that other people look at the posts here for support.

- What was wrong

The issue with attempting to move the CMS down a directory is that the entrypoint.sh file within the CMS Docker container does handle using the CMS_ALIAS from the config.env file to modify the .htaccess file within the /var/www/cms/web/ directory. However, the entrypoint.sh file does not complete all of the actions that would be needed to be done on the .htaccess file if a person has set the CMS_ALIAS configuration within the config.env file.

The entrypoint.sh file will uncomment and update the RewriteBase directive in the .htaccess file with the value of the CMS_ALIAS set within the config.env file but it does not modify the rewrite conditions for the API end points which it would have to do so if the CMS has moved down a directory.

Here is what the .htaccess file will look like in the Docker container once the container is spun up and a value is set on the CMS_ALIAS variable. The below example is with the assumption that the CMS_ALIAS was set to /cms.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /cms

RewriteCond %{HTTP:Authorization} .+
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/api/authorize/.*$
RewriteRule ^ api/authorize/index.php [QSA,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/api/.*$
RewriteRule ^ api/index.php [QSA,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/maint/.*$
RewriteRule ^ maint/index.php [QSA,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !.(css|js|png|jpg)$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/dist/.$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/theme/.$
RewriteRule ^ index.php [QSA,L]

As you can see in the rewrite conditions for the API access points that the rewrite condition is never matched due to the assertion of the start of the line in the regex condition for the API endpoints.
The rewrite conditions will match only when the rewrite base is not used.

- How to fix the issue

What needs to happen is to remove the ^ symbols in the rewrite conditions for the API end points so they look below.

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /api/authorize/.*$
RewriteRule ^ api/authorize/index.php [QSA,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /api/.*$
RewriteRule ^ api/index.php [QSA,L]

The issue is that the .htaccess file needs to be in the spun up CMS Docker container.

This is how we solved the issue. I have no idea if this would be the correct method or not so if you know a better way to solve this issue please contact me.

  1. First we obtained a copy of the .htaccess file from the spun up Docker container. We pulled a copy of the file when the CMS_ALIAS in the config.env was active.
  2. We updated the .htaccess file to correct for the issue.
  3. We placed the modified .htaccess file in our persistent volume for the CMS, /shared/cms/web/.
  4. We modified the docker-compose.yml file and added a specific file for the /var/www/cms/web/ directory within the container. What we added was the reference to the modified .htaccess file. See example below.

cms-web:
image: xibosignage/xibo-cms:release-2.3.10
volumes:
- “./shared/cms/custom:/var/www/cms/custom:Z”
- “./shared/backup:/var/www/backup:Z”
- “./shared/cms/web/theme/custom:/var/www/cms/web/theme/custom:Z”
- “./shared/cms/library:/var/www/cms/library:Z”
- “./shared/cms/web/userscripts:/var/www/cms/web/userscripts:Z”
- “./shared/cms/ca-certs:/var/www/cms/ca-certs:Z”
- “./shared/cms/web/.htaccess:/var/www/cms/web/.htaccess:Z”

  1. Spin down and up the containers and everything should work after that.

I hope this helps someone someday.