How can I use Confluence on a subdomain

[Nicolas Rehner]

Hello community,

as mentioned above I'm trying to make my confluence server accessible by typing "https://sub.domain.tld" in my browser bar.

I googled a lot, searched the community & the Atlassian documentation - but I'm still far from getting it to work. So I hope someone can "take me by the hand" or at least point me at my mistakes to get it running.

So here's an overview on my environment and the steps I took:

• Server
  • Hoster: Strato (DE)
  • OS: Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS
  • Plesk Onyx 17.5.3
  • Confluence 6.6.2
  • Apache 2.4.18
  • Subdomain certified trough Let's encrypt (Plesk)
• Status quo
  • Confluence accessible with "http://sub.domain.tld:8090"
  • Confluence not accessible with "https://sub.domain.tld:8090" (Error: SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG)
  • Confluence not accessible with "https://sub.domain.tld" (no Error but points to document root from Plesk)
  • Confluence not accessible with "http://sub.domain.tld" (points to document root from Plesk)
• What I did so far
  • Created an 'vhost.conf' located at /var/www/vhosts/system/sub.domain.tld/conf wich contains:

<VirtualHost XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:7080>
ServerName sub.domain.tld 
ProxyRequests Off
ProxyPreserveHost On 
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/synchrony
RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://sub.domain.tld:8090/$1 [P] 
<Proxy *> 
Require all granted 
</Proxy> 
ProxyPass /synchrony http://sub.domain.tld:8091/synchrony 
<Location /synchrony> 
Require all granted 
RewriteEngine on 
RewriteCond %{HTTP:UPGRADE} ^WebSocket$ [NC] RewriteCond %{HTTP:CONNECTION} Upgrade$ [NC]
RewriteRule .* ws://sub.domain.tld:8091%{REQUEST_URI} [P] 
</Location> 
ProxyPass / http://sub.domain.tld:8090 
ProxyPassReverse / http://sub.domain.tld:8090 
<Location /> 
Require all granted 
</Location> 
</VirtualHost> 

XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX = Ip of my server / sub.domain.tld = my subdomain

• Guides I used
  • https://rachny.eu/display/STAR/Speedrun+Installation+Atlassian+Confluence+unter+Strato+Plesk+Odin (German)
  • https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-questions/Get-Confluence-working-on-a-subdomain/qaq-p/624173
  • https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/using-apache-with-mod_proxy-173669.html

It would be create if you can help me out and point me to my mistakes!

Regards Nic

[Panos]

• Confluence not accessible with "https://sub.domain.tld:8090" (Error: SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG)
  
  That's right. SSL is on the apache and is best used there.

Since you are proxying the confluence, meaning that you should also declare this to the server.xml. Append to the <Connector section:

proxyName="sub.domain.tld"
proxyPort="80"
scheme="http"

As above poster, and without much knowledge of plesk, you are exposing port 7080 but you are expecting to connect to 443. 

[Edwin Kyalangalilwa]

Hi Nicolas,

Try changing to (reason there is error: SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG)

<VirtualHost _default_:80>

This will forward http://sub.domain.tld to ProxyPass http://sub.domain.tld:8090

For SSL, you'll have to forward 80 to https://sub.domain.tld and create

<VirtualHost _default_:443>

to forward 443 to http://sub.domain.tld:8090

More examples here https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/Jira-with-https-using-apache/qaq-p/706209

[TV Clipz]

What if your using centos7 64 bit with cPanel using nginx and want to use auto SSL that cPanel issues
I want to remove access to ip: xxx.xxx.xx.x:8090
And change it to
https://docs.domain.com

What would be the best easiest way ?
Thanks I'm new to all this and a little confused. Totally appreciate any help .

[TV Clipz]

im all set had a friend fix this for me

[abobakr]

Appreciate if you could explain the details here so others could benefit from.

I am looking for instruction on how to install Jira, Confluence and bitbucket on Cpanel server.

[Nicolas Rehner]

@Edwin Kyalangalilwa & @Panos

Thanks for your hints! Tested them along with some more googled - but it just didn't work. By chance I found out that the content of my 'vhost.conf' (mentioned above) is displayed in Plesk under

Subscriptions -> Websites&Domains -> <your.domain> -> Apache & nginx Settings -> Additional directives for HTTP.

There's also a section for Additional directives for HTTPS wich was empty.

So I pasted the Code from HTTP to HTTPS and tried to save. Plesk gave me an Error pointing out that <VirtualHost XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:80> is not allowed in this directive. (I didn't get the Error earlier because I edited the code in 'vhost.conf' directly) -
what should I say, after removing the incipient and the concluding <VirtualHost XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:80> code in both directives my instance is finally reachable under 'https://sub.domain.tld'.

So this problem is solved - but I ran in a new one:

Whenever using the editor sooner or later I get the Error described in this KNB Article . As I understand using a reverse proxy could cause this.

Does anyone see a mistake in the ProxyPass /synchrony part of my directive?

[Nicolas Rehner]

In the mentioned KNB Article there's a diagnostic step that recommends to visit http://websocket.org/echo.html to test the ability to establish a websocket connection.
They provide html code to perform your own tests.
I made an html document out of it wich I uploaded to the web root on my server.

When I try to access it the server returns a '403 Forbidden' Error.
(When opening it locally it works properly)

Does this hint to an firewall rule on the server that prevents synchrony to work proper?

[Panos]

How are you accessing the synchrony from internet? You should use yourdomain/synchrony and not yourdomain:8091

[Nicolas Rehner]

You mean through the browser? Never tried this actually - only used it inside confluence.

In my apache conf I use this part of the directive:

<Proxy *>
 Require all granted
</Proxy>

ProxyPass /synchrony http://sub.domain.tld:8091/synchrony

<Location /synchrony>
 Require all granted
 RewriteEngine on
 RewriteCond %{HTTP:UPGRADE} ^WebSocket$ [NC]
 RewriteCond %{HTTP:CONNECTION} Upgrade$ [NC]
 RewriteRule .* ws://sub.domain.tld:8091%{REQUEST_URI} [P]
</Location>

[Nicolas Rehner]

When trying to access 'https://sub.domain.tld/synchrony' I get 

{"message":"Not Found"}

diplayed.

[Panos]

Probably i misunderstood what you wrote apologies. Taking a second look in your configuration, it seems that you are not proxying the /synchrony rather round it to the sub.domain.tld:8091 which should not be open.

Do not open 8091, change the settings to proxy the /synchrony:

ProxyPass /synchrony http://localhost:8091/synchrony

<Location /synchrony>
 Require all granted
 RewriteEngine on
 RewriteCond %{HTTP:UPGRADE} ^WebSocket$ [NC]
 RewriteCond %{HTTP:CONNECTION} Upgrade$ [NC]
 RewriteRule .* ws://localhost:8091%{REQUEST_URI} [P]
</Location>

[Nicolas Rehner]

No matter - thanks for your quick help primarily!

I applied the changes but the behavior stays the same.

Does it make sense to use 

RewriteRule .* wss://localhost:8091%{REQUEST_URI} [P]

instead of

RewriteRule .* ws://localhost:8091%{REQUEST_URI} [P]

 due to the use of https?

[Panos]

Did you also change the ProxyPass?

No, your tomcat server is not having any SSL. wss would break even more. 

Check that you have 

LoadModule proxy_module /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_proxy_http.so
LoadModule proxy_wstunnel_module /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_proxy_wstunnel.so
LoadModule rewrite_module /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_rewrite.so

modules enabled. Location may varies. If you have selinux set permissive temporary and start scavenging logs for the 403 error.

[Nicolas Rehner]

Yes I applied both changes you suggested.

The modules are activated trough Plesk - but I'll dig in the system to find my LoadModule Directives.

selinux is not present on my server and I'm not familiar with it so I'm a bit afraid activating it.

Are there any other ways to find significant logs?

Edit: Could this guide help me any further? https://confluence.atlassian.com/confkb/how-to-configure-apache-mod_jk-to-proxy-confluence-6-x-or-later-867351565.html

mod_jk is enabled but I'm not sure if used to proxy confluence

[Panos]

I am not a plesk expert, you should check though apache logs for why the 403 and atlassian-confluence.log along with synchrony.log in the application-data folder. 

(Names are indicative, can't remember exact filenames)

[Nicolas Rehner]

Can you give me hints what to search for in synchrony.log?

[Panos]

Sorry no, i use older version of confluence myself. Anyhow, something indicative of permission denied.

[Nicolas Rehner]

Thanks for your help!

Because it doesn't really correspondend to the original question I started a new one for this problem.

It can be found here: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-questions/How-can-I-get-Synchrony-to-work-behind-a-reverse-Proxy/qaq-p/715495