Zope via Apache

Since I have multiple domains running off one server, I needed an easy way to handle these virtual domains with Zope. Apache fit the bill admirably and with a bit of work I was able to launch my first web-site through Apache using FastCGI as the "gateway" tool to do the job. The following entry is how I set up www.favoritedeli.com:

<VirtualHost *>
    ServerName   www.favoritedeli.com
    ServerAdmin  webmaster@cybrains.net
    DocumentRoot /home/apache/favdeli/docs
    ErrorLog     /home/apache/favdeli/logs/error_log
    CustomLog    /home/apache/favdeli/logs/access_log combined
    FastCgiExternalServer /home/apache/favdeli/docs/index2.html \
                          -host localhost:8182 \
                          -appConnTimeout 0 \
                          -pass-header Authorization
    FastCgiExternalServer /home/apache/favdeli/docs/html \
                          -host localhost:8182 \
                          -appConnTimeout 0 \
                          -pass-header Authorization
    <Location /html>
      SetHandler fastcgi-script
    </Location>
    <Location /index2.html>
      SetHandler fastcgi-script
    </Location>

</VirtualHost>

The main drawback with FastCGI was that I could not figure out how to address the site at its root as www.favoritedeli.com. Instead, the Zope served pages actually start at www.favoritedeli.com/html.

While looking at upgrading to the Zope 2.6, I came across another little documented method of passing requests directly to Zope via Apache and that was with the Mod_Proxy plugin tool for Apache.

The first step is to make sure that your Apache build includes support for the proxy module (look for "mod_proxy.c" in the output of "httpd -l"). If it doesn't, you can recompile Apache by doing the following:

$ ./configure --enable-module=proxy
$ make
$ make install

Once you have done this, the above httpd.conf entry becomes much simpler with the following:

<VirtualHost *>
    ServerName   www.favoritedeli.com
    ServerAdmin  webmaster@cybrains.net
    DocumentRoot /home/apache/favdeli/docs
    ErrorLog     /home/apache/favdeli/logs/error_log
    CustomLog    /home/apache/favdeli/logs/access_log combined

    ProxyPass / http://localhost:8080/favdeli/
    ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8080/sites/favdeli/
</VirtualHost>

Although I have not done any formal testing, the mod_proxy method seems to be an order of magnitude faster than the FastCGI method. At the very least, it appeals to my minimalist tendencies in having less code and configuration options to maintain and seems to be much easier to debug when things aren't connecting properly.

mwlang@cybrains.net

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