Apache https reverse proxy with Tomcat

Question

Well, I looked everywhere I could, but if some know where I could find a solution, sorry for asking once again the question.

We are looking to implement this solution : HTTP client -> Apache 2.4 Reverse Proxy -> HTTP Server => Works OK HTTPS client -> Apache 2.4 Reverse Proxy -> HTTPS Server => Works OK

But, when the HTTPS server replies with a "302" redirection header, the server name in the header is not translated to the client-side known server name. So, the client fail to connect, due to a DNS error.

We can't add the backend server name in the DNS, so we need that solution to work.

Important notice: the same works in HTTP. It means that when the server reply is a "302" redirection header in HTTP, there's no problem. It works even if the target of the redirection is a HTTPS link. So what is not working is redirecting from HTTPS to HTTPS. The backend webserver is Tomcat.

The problem is: in HTTPS header, the redirection URL is " https://[backendname]/something.html " but we expect it to be " https://[servername]/something.html "

We've checked that we have no error in log file (error level set to "debug").

Here is our virtual site configuration:

<VirtualHost [reverse proxy IP]:443>
    SSLEngine on
    SSLProxyEngine on
    SSLCertificateFile    D:/Apache24/ssl/certs/servername.cer
    SSLCertificateKeyFile D:/Apache24/ssl/private/servername.key

    ServerName [servername]
    ProxyPass / https://[backendname]:443/
        ProxyPassReverseCookiePath / https://[backendname]:443/
        ProxyPassReverse / https://[backendname]:443/

    SetOutputFilter proxy-html
    ProxyHTMLEnable On
    ProxyHTMLURLMap https://[backendname] https://[servername]

    ErrorLog  D:/Apache24/logs/custom/[servername]_error.log
    CustomLog D:/Apache24/logs/custom/[servername]_access.log combined

    SetEnv nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown
</VirtualHost>

Problem related Apache activated modules:

LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_connect_module modules/mod_proxy_connect.so
LoadModule proxy_html_module modules/mod_proxy_html.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
LoadModule xml2enc_module modules/mod_xml2enc.so

So, any help to make this work will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Here is the working solution, as suggested by Michael Akerman

• disable caching
• write new instruction: ProxyPassReverse https://[backend]/

Thanks for your help