Struts redirect behind reverse proxy

[Michelle Griffin]

I have an issue dealing with a struts application behind an apache proxy.

The url used through proxy is https://www.example.com/myapp/.
The proxy redirects to http://localmachine:8080/myapp/Logon.do.
So when the struts application redirects to new pages, the new pages fail to load.

Proxy config contains:
RewriteRule /myapp/(*.)  http://localmachine:8080/myapp/$1 [P,L]

The myapp/WEB-INF/web.xml contains:
<welcome-file-list>
   <welcom-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
</welcom-file-list>

The myapp/WEB-INF/struts-config.xml contains:
<global-forwards>
   <forward name="Welcome" path="/Logon.do" >
</global-forwards>

The myapp/index.jsp contains:
<%@ taglib uri="http://struts.apache.org/tags-logic" prefix="logic" %>
<logic:redirect forward="Welcome"/>

Could anyone tell me how to make this struts application work properly behind the reverse proxy?

[Joe Ess]

What is your local web server?  If it is Tomcat, do you have your Connector(s) configured with a proxyName/proxyPort like this:

<Connector port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1"
       connectionTimeout="20000"
       URIEncoding="UTF-8"
       proxyName="example.org"
       proxyPort="80"
/>

see here for more info

[Michelle Griffin]

Sorry, I did not get to test this sooner, the system was dismantled and rebuilt but now I am able to test your solution below.

I added the proxyName and proxyPort to the Tomcat conf/server.xml file but it seemed to have no affect.

Is there maybe another configuration setting I am missing?  Or another area I should try to debug?

Thank you again for the assistance.

[Tim Holloway]

I don't think you're actually using an Apache reverse proxy in the strict sense. I think you're just rewriting URLs.

Apache has 2 reverse proxy modules that can work with Tomcat: mod_jk and mod_proxy. You didn't supply the directives that would have made either of them do the proxying.

A true reverse proxy does more than just rewrite URLs. In fact, the Apache proxies forward the proxy requests over special channels using special protocols, so instead of talking to Tomcat port 8080 or 8443, they talk to port 8081, which is the Coyote Connector for proxy traffic.

And, incidentally. using an application-supplied login instead of letting Tomcat handle login via J2EE security is a lot less secure.