Using Apache for proxying connections to Crucible

Atlassian’s web applications are great tools for software development and they are relatively easy to setup because they come with Jetty servlet container and HQSQL database. You only have to install Java. Some of the applications can be also run like any normal deployable WAR-packaged web application for example with Apache Tomcat which gives you more control and administration options. But unfortunately code review tool Crucible isn’t one of those applications and maybe will never be.

Proxying connections to Crucible

By default Crucible runs in port 8060 which isn’t nicely looking for users. It’s way better to use ports 80 or 443 which are normal HTTP and HTTPS ports and are omitted from browser’s address bar. Of course you can configure that in the Administration screens, or by editing Crucible’s config.xml and restarting Crucible but if you run Crucible as a non root or also have other software running on the same server that isn’t an option.

One solution is to use Apache HTTP server to proxy connections from port 443 to Crucible’s listening port. I did it for Crucible and FishEye on CentOS x86_64 but things are mostly the same also on other Linuxes. I also disabled the HTTP port and used just the SSL enabled HTTPS with self generated certificates.

First we setup Apache for proxying connections to Crucible and then we generate some SSL certificates for HTTPS. If you haven’t Apache installed you can do it with yum like: yum install httpd.x86_64 mod_ssl openssl

1. Set HTTPS proxying in /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf

...

SSLProxyEngine on
ProxyRequests Off
ProxyPreserveHost On
ProxyPassReverse /crucible ajp://127.0.0.1:8060/crucible
proxyPass /crucible ajp://127.0.0.1:8060/crucible

RewriteEngine On
...

2. Generating SSL Certificate for Apache

# openssl genrsa -out localhost.key 1024
# openssl req -new -key localhost.key -out localhost.csr
# openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in localhost.csr -signkey localhost.key -out localhost.crt
# mv localhost.csr localhost.key /etc/pki/tls/private/
# mv localhost.crt /etc/pki/tls/certs/

3. Start httpd

# service httpd start

Configuring Crucible

4. Configure Crucible (http://hostname:8060/admin)

Edit Web Settings:
-----------------
Web context: crucible
Http Bind: (none)
Ajp13 Bind Address: ajp://127.0.0.1:8060/crucible

And you’re ready.