Configure docker httpd image

on docker, apache, httpd, proxy, httpd.conf

Recently I had to publish multiple application on a single machine and all applications will be publicly available on their own domains names.

As I am a docker addict, I want all my applications to be running as a docker container.

Imagine I have the following applications :

name url Container Name Container Port (Expose)

app1

www.app1.lol

app1-container

3000

app2

www.app2.lol

app2-container

4000

app3

www.app3.lol

app3-container

8080
I assume that all container are running (with or without -P flag)

The thing is that I do not want to install a proxy (Apache or Nginx) on the docker host, so I wanted to create a docker container that will act as a proxy of all my applications

So I decided to use the docker httpd:2.4 image.

Create your project directory : mkdir ~/apache-proxy & cd ~/apache-proxy

Extract httpd.conf

First you will need to "extract" the httpd.conf file from the image to be able to configure your apache server.

So you need to start a docker httpd container in a terminal :

docker run -it --name apacheTmp httpd:2.4
The name apacheTmp is just here to make extraction easy and to show you that this container will be deleted after use…​

Then open a new terminal window (or a new sesion if you are doing it remotely)

And copy the httpd.conf file :

docker cp apacheTmp:/usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf ~/apache-proxy
personnaly I prefer to create a copy (to keep the original as it was) : cp ~/apache-proxy/httpd.conf ~/apache-proxy/my-httpd.conf.

Configure apache and vhosts

Now I edited the my-httpd.conf file to enable modules proxy and proxy_http,

I just remove comment on the lines :

LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so

And

LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so

Then I created, at the end of the files my 3 vhosts

www.app1.lol
<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName www.app1.lol
  ProxyPass / http://app1:3000/
</VirtualHost>
www.app2.lol
<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName www.app2.lol
  ProxyPass / http://app2:4000/
</VirtualHost>
www.app3.lol
<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName www.app3.lol
  ProxyPass / http://app3:8080/
</VirtualHost>

Create Docker Container

Now I can Create my "proxy" docker file :

~/apache-proxy/Dockerfile
FROM httpd:2.4
COPY ./my-httpd.conf /usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf

So I can build now :

docker build -t my/apache-proxy .

Then I can run it :

docker run -d -p 80:80 --link app1-container:app1 --link app3-container:app3 --link app2-container:app2 --name my-proxy my/apache-proxy

And now you should be able to access your 3 apps …​.

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