Attention

You can now run different PHP versions per project: Release v3.0.0-beta-0.1

Setup reverse proxy Sphinx docs

This example will walk you through creating a Sphinx documentation, which is started automatically on docker-compose up, will be proxied to the web server and can be reached via valid HTTPS.

Note

It is also possible to attach a leight-weight Python container to the Devilbox instead of running this in the PHP container. See here for details: Reverse Proxy for custom Docker

Table of Contents

Overview

The following configuration will be used:

Project name VirtualHost directory Database TLD_SUFFIX Project URL
my-sphinx /shared/httpd/my-sphinx
loc http://my-sphinx.loc
https://my-sphinx.loc

Additionally we will set the listening port of the Sphinx appliation to 4000 inside the PHP container.

We also want Sphinx running and autostarted only in the PHP 7.2 container (local autostart) and have all its required Python packages installed during docker-compose up.

Note

  • Inside the Devilbox PHP container, projects are always in /shared/httpd/.
  • On your host operating system, projects are by default in ./data/www/ inside the Devilbox git directory. This path can be changed via HOST_PATH_HTTPD_DATADIR.

Walk through

It will be ready in nine simple steps:

  1. Enter the PHP container
  2. Create a new VirtualHost directory
  3. Create basic Sphinx project
  4. Create virtual docroot directory
  5. Add reverse proxy vhost-gen config files
  6. Create autostart script
  7. Setup DNS record
  8. Restart the Devilbox
  9. Visit http://my-sphinx.loc in your browser

1. Enter the PHP container

All work will be done inside the PHP container as it provides you with all required command line tools.

Navigate to the Devilbox git directory and execute shell.sh (or shell.bat on Windows) to enter the running PHP container.

host> ./shell.sh

2. Create new vhost directory

The vhost directory defines the name under which your project will be available.
( <vhost dir>.TLD_SUFFIX will be the final URL ).

devilbox@php-7.0.20 in /shared/httpd $ mkdir my-sphinx

See also

TLD_SUFFIX

3. Create basic Sphinx project

# Navigate to your project directory
devilbox@php-7.0.20 in /shared/httpd $ cd my-sphinx

# Create a directory which will hold the documentation source code
devilbox@php-7.0.20 in /shared/httpd/my-sphinx $ mkdir doc

Create a basic Sphinx configuration file:

/shared/httpd/my-sphinx/doc/conf.py
source_suffix = '.rst'
master_doc = 'index'
html_theme = 'default'

exclude_patterns = [
    u'_build/*'
]

Create the table of contents file:

/shared/httpd/my-sphinx/doc/index.rst
.. :hidden:

*******
My Docs
*******

Description

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 2

   page1

Create the first page page1:

/shared/httpd/my-sphinx/doc/page1.rst
******
Page 1
******

Hello world

4. Create virtual docroot directory

Every project for the Devilbox requires a htdocs directory present inside the project dir. For a reverse proxy this is not of any use, but rather only for the Intranet vhost page to stop complaining about the missing htdocs directory. So that’s why this is only a virtual directory which will not hold any data.

# Navigate to your project directory
devilbox@php-7.0.20 in /shared/httpd $ cd my-sphinx

# Create the docroot directory
devilbox@php-7.0.20 in /shared/httpd/my-sphinx $ mkdir htdocs

5. Add reverse proxy vhost-gen config files

5.1 Create vhost-gen template directory

Before we can copy the vhost-gen templates, we must create the .devilbox template directory inside the project directory.

# Navigate to your project directory
devilbox@php-7.0.20 in /shared/httpd $ cd my-sphinx

# Create the .devilbox template directory
devilbox@php-7.0.20 in /shared/httpd/my-sphinx $ mkdir .devilbox

5.2 Copy vhost-gen templates

Now we can copy and adjust the vhost-gen reverse proxy files for Apache 2.2, Apache 2.4 and Nginx.

The reverse vhost-gen templates are available in cfg/vhost-gen:

host> tree -L 1 cfg/vhost-gen/

cfg/vhost-gen/
├── apache22.yml-example-rproxy
├── apache22.yml-example-vhost
├── apache24.yml-example-rproxy
├── apache24.yml-example-vhost
├── nginx.yml-example-rproxy
├── nginx.yml-example-vhost
└── README.md

0 directories, 7 files

For this example we will copy all *-example-rproxy files into /shared/httpd/my-sphinx/.devilbox to ensure this will work with all web servers.

host> cd /path/to/devilbox
host> cp cfg/vhost-gen/apache22.yml-example-rproxy data/www/my-sphinx/.devilbox/apache22.yml
host> cp cfg/vhost-gen/apache24.yml-example-rproxy data/www/my-sphinx/.devilbox/apache24.yml
host> cp cfg/vhost-gen/nginx.yml-example-rproxy data/www/my-sphinx/.devilbox/nginx.yml

5.3 Adjust ports

By default, all vhost-gen templates will forward requests to port 8000 into the PHP container. Our current example however uses port 4000, so we must change that accordingly for all three templates.

5.3.1 Adjust Apache 2.2 template

Open the apache22.yml vhost-gen template in your project:

host> cd /path/to/devilbox
host> vi data/www/my-sphinx/.devilbox/apache22.yml

Find the two lines with ProxyPass and ProxyPassReverse and change the port from 8000 to 4000

data/www/my-sphinx/.devilbox/apache22.yml
# ... more lines above ... #

###
### Basic vHost skeleton
###
vhost: |
  <VirtualHost __DEFAULT_VHOST__:__PORT__>
      ServerName   __VHOST_NAME__

      CustomLog  "__ACCESS_LOG__" combined
      ErrorLog   "__ERROR_LOG__"

      # Reverse Proxy definition (Ensure to adjust the port, currently '8000')
      ProxyRequests On
      ProxyPreserveHost On
      ProxyPass / http://php:4000/
      ProxyPassReverse / http://php:4000/

# ... more lines below ... #
5.3.2 Adjust Apache 2.4 template

Open the apache24.yml vhost-gen template in your project:

host> cd /path/to/devilbox
host> vi data/www/my-sphinx/.devilbox/apache24.yml

Find the two lines with ProxyPass and ProxyPassReverse and change the port from 8000 to 4000

data/www/my-sphinx/.devilbox/apache24.yml
# ... more lines above ... #

###
### Basic vHost skeleton
###
vhost: |
  <VirtualHost __DEFAULT_VHOST__:__PORT__>
      ServerName   __VHOST_NAME__

      CustomLog  "__ACCESS_LOG__" combined
      ErrorLog   "__ERROR_LOG__"

      # Reverse Proxy definition (Ensure to adjust the port, currently '8000')
      ProxyRequests On
      ProxyPreserveHost On
      ProxyPass / http://php:4000/
      ProxyPassReverse / http://php:4000/

# ... more lines below ... #
5.3.3 Adjust Nginx template

Open the nginx.yml vhost-gen template in your project:

host> cd /path/to/devilbox
host> vi data/www/my-sphinx/.devilbox/nginx.yml

Find the lines with proxy_pass and change the port from 8000 to 4000

data/www/my-sphinx/.devilbox/nginx.yml
# ... more lines above ... #

###
### Basic vHost skeleton
###
vhost: |
  server {
      listen       __PORT____DEFAULT_VHOST__;
      server_name  __VHOST_NAME__;

      access_log   "__ACCESS_LOG__" combined;
      error_log    "__ERROR_LOG__" warn;

      # Reverse Proxy definition (Ensure to adjust the port, currently '8000')
      location / {
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_pass http://php:4000;
      }

# ... more lines below ... #

6. Create autostart script

Remember, we only wanted to have our Sphinx application run on the PHP 7.2 container, so we will create a autostart script only for that container.

Navigate to cfg/php-startup-7.2/ in the Devilbox git directory and create a new shell script ending by .sh

# Navigate to the Devilbox git directory
host> cd /path/to/devilbox

# Nagivate to startup directory for PHP 7.2 and create the script
host> cd cfg/php-startup-7.2/
host> vi my-sphinx.sh
cfg/php-startup-7.2/my-sphinx.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Install required Python modules as root user
pip install sphinx sphinx-autobuild

# Autostart Sphinx by devilbox user on Port 4000 and sent it to backgroun with '&'
sh -c "cd /shared/httpd/my-sphinx; sphinx-autobuild . _build/html -p 4000 -H 0.0.0.0" -l devilbox &

See also

7. DNS record

If you have Auto DNS configured already, you can skip this section, because DNS entries will be available automatically by the bundled DNS server.

If you don’t have Auto DNS configured, you will need to add the following line to your host operating systems /etc/hosts file (or C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc on Windows):

/etc/hosts
127.0.0.1 my-sphinx.loc

8. Restart the Devilbox

Now for those changes to take affect, you will have to restart the Devilbox.

host> cd /path/to/devilbox

# Stop the Devilbox
host> docker-compose down
host> docker-compose rm -f

# Start the Devilbox
host> docker-compose up -d php httpd bind

9. Open your browser

All set now, you can visit http://my-sphinx.loc or https://my-sphinx.loc in your browser. The Sphinx application has been started up automatically and the reverse proxy will direct all requests to it.

Next steps

Once everything is installed and setup correctly, you might be interested in a few follow-up topics.

Use bundled batteries

The Devilbox ships most common Web UIs accessible from the intranet.

Enhance the Devilbox

Go ahead and make the Devilbox more smoothly by setting up its core features.

Add services

In case your framework/CMS requires it, attach caching, queues, database or performance tools.

Container tools

Stay inside the container and use what’s available.