Running Opa server on port 80

Question

What would be the cleanest way to run an opa app on port 80 :

• Run the opa app as root ?
• Use iptable to redirect port 8080 to port 80
• run opa app behind an apache server and redirect port 8080 to apache port 80 using ProxyPass ?

Thanks

Kayhman

Answer 1

Here's what I do on my apache/vhost server to run an Opa app on just one domain. It requires mod_proxy on your apache server.

1. Run Opa as a non privileged user, on port 8081.

2. Configure the virtualhost within apache as follows:

   <VirtualHost *:80>
     ServerAdmin me@example.org
     ServerName www.example.com
     ServerAlias example.com
     DocumentRoot /var/www/domains/example.com/www/htdocs
     ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/www.example.com-error_log
     CustomLog /var/log/apache2/www.example.com-access_log common
   
     ProxyPreserveHost On
     ProxyRequests Off
   
     <Proxy *>
       Order deny,allow
       Allow from all
     </Proxy>
   
     ProxyPass / http://localhost:8081/
     ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8081/
   </VirtualHost>
   

This forwards all requests to example.com to the opa server running on port 8081.

Answer 2

You can use:

• Authbind to start your app directly on port 80 via a non-privileged user
• or start the app behind a proxy like nginx or haproxy.

Answer 3

Option 3: use a reverse proxy such as nginx (Apache would be overkill here) and leave opa on port 8080.