Apache2 (reverse proxy) + Django + Gunicorn

Question

I have a problem with my Apache2 web server as reverse proxy server. The simplified server setup with my domain "example.com" looks like this:

If clients now go to the page https://example.com/guacamole, then the Apache2 web server should forward the requests to the Tomcat server (https://127.0.0.1:8080/guacamole). This part works.

If clients go to https://example.com/mydjangoproject, then the Apache2 web server should forward requests to the web server using Gunicorn and the Django project (https://192.168.30.5:8000). However, this configuration works only partially. The page https://example.com/mydjangoproject shows the main page of the Django project, but when calling the admin page https://example.com/mydjangoproject/admin the django application gives the error that the page http://192.168.30.5:8000//admin does not exist. It seems like the sub-URL "/mydjangoproject/" is removed when calling the admin page. What could that be?

This is my configuration:

<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
<VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerAdmin [email protected]
    ServerName example.com
    ServerAlias www.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/example.com/html
    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

    Include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-apache.conf
    SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/fullchain.pem
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/privkey.pem

    JKMount /* ajp13_worker

    SSLProxyEngine on
    SSLProxyVerify none
    SSLProxyCheckPeerCN off
    SSLProxyCheckPeerName off
    ProxyPreserveHost On

    ProxyPass /static/ !
    ProxyPass /mydjangoproject https://192.168.30.5:8000/
    ProxyPassReverse /mydjangoproject https://192.168.30.5:8000/
</VirtualHost>
</IfModule>

Thanks for your help!

Edit: When i try to enter the admin-page via https://example.com/mydjangoproject/admin then this error occurs:

Answer 1

You'll likely need to alter your ProxyPass and ProxyPassReverse directives to get this to work.

You should try replacing these lines:

ProxyPass /static/ !
ProxyPass /mydjangoproject https://192.168.30.5:8000/
ProxyPassReverse /mydjangoproject https://192.168.30.5:8000/

With e.g.:

# "Convenience" URL
ProxyPass /mydjangoproject https://192.168.30.5:8000
ProxyPassReverse /mydjangoproject https://192.168.30.5:8000

# --- The lines below are what actually allow access to /admin ---

# Proxy /admin for login
ProxyPass /admin http://192.168.30.5:8000/admin
ProxyPassReverse /admin http://192.168.30.5:8000/admin

# Proxy /static for CSS, etc.
ProxyPass /static http://192.168.30.5:8000/static
ProxyPassReverse /static http://192.168.30.5:8000/static

You should then be able to use e.g. https://example.com/admin to access your Django /admin page and get the correct login dialog:

ex. Django Admin Login

When I try to enter the admin page via https://example.com/mydjangoproject/admin an error occurs.

You should be able to add the following lines (in addition to those recommended above) to get this to (kind of) work:

ProxyPass /mydjangoproject/admin http://192.168.30.5:8000
ProxyPassReverse /mydjangoproject/admin http://192.168.30.5:8000

Note that Django seems to redirect ex. https://example.com/mydjangoproject/admin to ex. https://example.com/admin automatically, which breaks things unless you already have ex. ProxyPass /admin http://192.168.30.5:8000/admin as an existing entry (included above).