How to switch to/from HTTPS using Apache as a proxy to Tomcat

Posted on by

I’m writing this down because it too me an age to figure out a way of doing this. I have a website which Tomcat is happily serving. Areas of the site require a secure connection so I’m using Spring security to require particular URLs to be accessed over HTTPS. It means that when I access http://example.org:8080/webapp/login, it’ll bump me to https://example.org:8443/webapp/login. Note: Tomcat is setup with the SSL connector and a self signed .keystore see (http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-6.0-doc/ssl-howto.html).

I have two vhosts setup in Apache, one for the http://example.org and one for https://example.org. They are both using mod_proxy to ProxyPass and ProxyPassReverse requests to the appropriate Tomcat URL’s. The problem comes when switching to HTTPS from HTTP and vice versa. Ideally I wanted some sort of ProxyPassReverse declaration in my config for http://example.org what would change HTTP headers (that Spring sets) for https://example.org:8443/webapp into https://example.org. Except ProxyPassReverse doesn’t work like that.

Now, I realise I could simply not use Spring to manage which parts of the site should be accessed over HTTPS and which should not…and just setup Apache to redirect as appropriate. I don’t want to do that though, because that makes the task of adding these restrictions a deploy time task, rather than a development time task. I don’t want to risk someone forgetting to add new restrictions when deploying the webapp and I’d much rather the developer added these restrictions when they were working on the task and really thinking about where and when they are needed.

So, how do I solve the problem so that the app can manage its secure-ness and I can setup Apache once and forget about it? The answer is to ProxyPassReverse onto a “special” URL, which when accessed will redirect to the HTTPS (or HTTP) site. For example, if the HTTP site needed to redirect to the HTTPS site, I’d add rules like so to perform the redirect:

    # Proxy a request (from the server) to switch to https onto a special URL "/2https/"
    ProxyPassReverse /2https/ https://example.org:8443/webapp/

    # When a client requests a URL prefixed with "/2https" map it onto the secure site
    RewriteRule ^/2https/(.*)$ https://example.org/$1 [R,L]

…and you’d add something similar to the secure site Apache config. As long as I don’t mount any pages at /2http or /2https I should be ok. Note a couple of things:

  • You’ll need “SSLProxyEngine on” and “RewriteEngine on” and obviously the appropriate Apache modules loaded for these commands.
  • Because of the redirect between HTTP <-> HTTPS you won’t be able to POST data between them directly (I’m not sure why you’d NEED to though)
  • Obviously you’ll need to setup Apache with an SSL certificate…but that is a different story

I should say a special thanks to this random site – from whence the idea actually came from. If anyone has any better ideas on how to do it I’d love to hear them. Please comment below.

10,607 thoughts on “How to switch to/from HTTPS using Apache as a proxy to Tomcat”

  4. These are actually wonderful ideas in regarding
    blogging. You have touched some pleasant things here.

    Any way keep up wrinting.

    Here is my web-site; greyhound derby 2026 odds​ (Bianca)

  7. Hey just wanted to give you a quick heads up.
    The words in your content seem to be running off the screen in Opera.

    I’m not sure if this is a formatting issue or something to do with internet browser compatibility but
    I figured I’d post to let you know. The design and style
    look great though! Hope you get the problem solved soon. Many thanks

  24. Hi there are using WordPress for your blog platform? I’m new to the blog
    world but I’m trying to get started and create my own. Do you require any coding expertise to
    make your own blog? Any help would be really appreciated!

  25. У меня кондиционеры, сезон короткий. Классическое SEO не успевает — пока сайт раскачается, лето заканчивается. В статье прямо написано про сезонный бизнес: накрутка запускается за 1–2 месяца до сезона, за 2–4 недели выводит в топ-10, и к пику продаж сайт уже собирает трафик. Автор даже даёт примеры бюджетов. Очень вовремя наткнулся, спасибо: https://yagla.ru/blog/drugoe-o-marketinge/nakrutka-povedencheskih-faktorov-v-2026–2604u119831/

  26. Сайт упёрся в 4–5 место по важным запросам, дальше не двигается. В статье нашёл раздел про точечную поддержку: «рывок на 2–3 позиции выше за 2–4 недели». Автор объясняет, как это работает и какие объёмы нужны. Решил протестировать. Ссылка: https://teletype.in/@pfup/3mo6UGVvR2a

  27. Good morning Master the art of tracking interesting mysterious animal migrations for valuable eco insights and follow nature journeys see on the website for migration maps Full information on the link – https://aicreativen.site All the best and development in business

  35. Инвентаризацию раньше проводили целый день — считали вручную сверяли с записями. Теперь процесс занимает пару часов а расхождения видны сразу. 1С управление нашей фирмой

  50. 탁월한 이슈 전반적으로, 당신은 단순히 새로운 독자를 획득했습니다.
    몇 일 전에 올린 게시에 대해 무엇을 제안하시겠습니까?
    확실한 게 있나요?

    This paragraph offers clear idea in favor of the new users of blogging,
    that genuinely how to do blogging.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>