Using Apache with mod_jk
- The preferred configuration is Using Apache with mod_proxy. This works with any application server, and together with
mod_proxy_htmlallows complex URL rewriting to deal with different application paths on the web server and the application server. - This page documents a configuration of Apache, rather than of Confluence itself. Atlassian will support Confluence with this configuration, but we cannot guarantee to help you debug problems with Apache. Please be aware that this material is provided for your information only, and that you use it at your own risk.
Introduction
The Apache web server is often used in front of an application server to improve performance in high-load environments. Mod_jk allows request forwarding to an application via a protocol called AJP. Configuration of this involves enabling mod_jk in Apache, configuring a AJP connector in your application server, and directing Apache to forward certain paths to the application server via mod_jk.
Mod_jk is sometimes preferred to mod_proxy because AJP is a binary protocol, and because some site administrators are more familiar with it than with mod_proxy..
The scope of this documentation is limited to configuring the AJP connector in Tomcat 5.x. Other application servers may support AJP connectors; please consult your application server documentation for instructions on how to configure it.
The configuration below assumes your Confluence instance is accessible on the same path on the application server and the web server. For example:
Externally accessible (web server) URL | |
|---|---|
Application server URL (HTTP) |
The AJP connection of the application server is set to: app-server.internal.example.com:8009.
Configuring mod_jk in Apache
The standard distribution of Apache does not include mod_jk. You need to download it from the JK homepage and put the mod_jk.so file in your Apache modules directory.
Next, add the following in httpd.conf directly or included from another file:
# Put this after the other LoadModule directives
LoadModule jk_module modules/mod_jk.so
# Put this in the main section of your configuration (or desired virtual host, if using Apache virtual hosts)
JkWorkersFile conf/workers.properties
JkLogFile logs/mod_jk.log
JkLogLevel info
JkMount /confluence worker1
JkMount /confluence/* worker1
Configuring workers.properties
Create a new file called 'workers.properties', and put it in your Apache conf directory. (The path for workers.properties was one of the configuration settings above.)
worker.list=worker1
worker.worker1.host=app-server.internal.example.com
worker.worker1.port=8009
worker.worker1.type=ajp13
Tomcat 5.x configuration
In Tomcat 5, the AJP connector is enabled by default on port 8009. An absolutely minimal Tomcat server.xml is below for comparison. The relevant line is the Connector with port 8009 – make sure this is uncommented in your server.xml.
<Server port="8000" shutdown="SHUTDOWN">
<Service name="Catalina">
<!-- Define a HTTP/1.1 Connector on port 8090 -->
<Connector port="8090" />
<!-- Define an AJP 1.3 Connector on port 8009 -->
<Connector port="8009" protocol="AJP/1.3" />
<Engine name="Catalina" defaultHost="localhost">
<Host name="localhost" appBase="webapps">
<Context path="/confluence" docBase="/opt/webapps/confluence-2.2/confluence"/>
<Logger className="org.apache.catalina.logger.FileLogger"/>
</Host>
</Engine>
</Service>
</Server>
Points to note:
- the Connector on port 8009 has protocol of "AJP/1.3". This is critical.
- the Context path of the Confluence application is "/confluence". This must match the path used to access Confluence on the web server.
- we recommend keeping your application Contexts outside the server.xml in Tomcat 5.x. The above example includes them for demonstration only.
Improving the performance of the mod_jk connector
The most important setting in high-load environments is the number of processor threads used by the Tomcat AJP connector. By default, this is 200, but you should increase it to match Apache's maxThreads setting (256 by default):
<Connector port="8009" minSpareThreads="5" maxThreads="256" protocol="AJP/1.3" />
All the configuration parameters for the AJP connector are covered in the Tomcat documentation.
Ensuring UTF-8 compatibility
If you have problems downloading attachments with non-ASCII characters in the filename, add the following to your Apache configuration:
JkOptions +ForwardURICompatUnparsed
And specify UTF-8 as the URIEncoding in the AJP connector configuration:
<Connector port="8009" protocol="AJP/1.3" URIEncoding="UTF-8" />
These settings are discussed further on Configuring Tomcat's URI encoding.
More information
The Tomcat JK website has complete documentation on workers.properties and Apache configuration. You can also find information there on how to use mod_jk with IIS.
Note: In IIS proxy server the maximum file upload is 30mb by default. Contact your server administrator if you need to upload a bigger file.