Content server apache reverse proxy issue

[bossanova808]

Hi Folks

I am running UniServer (a nice WAMP package) as my home server and I use reverse proxies for a bunch of apps so that I can have nice, neat navigation to my server using simple URLs and everything over only one open port 80.

I am trying to add calibre this same was as http://servername/books/

I am using the following Location directive:

<Location /books/>
    order deny,allow
    deny from all
    allow from all
    ProxyPass http://localhost:19553/
    ProxyPassReverse http://localhost:19553/
</Location>

...this works for my other apps (sickbeard, sabnzbd etc)....but I can't quite get it to work for Calibre with the above. I get to the Calibre front page but the CSS is clearly not loading, I just get raw html text (Mobile/Old/etc).

I am running the server as:

"C:\Program Files\Calibre2\calibre-server.exe" --with-library "K:\Calibre Library" --port 19553 --username BookLibrary --password XXX

Any ideas?? I can reach the calibre server remotely fine using the classic http://servername:19553/ and can also reach it on the server via localhost:19553

Thanks in advance for any help! I am by no means an Apache guru but I haev 4 or 5 other apps running this way ok....

[kovidgoyal]

http://calibre-ebook.com/user_manual/server.html

[bossanova808]

Hi Kovid

Many thanks - I have already read this - you mention using reverse proxy - but not really how to do it...

[kovidgoyal]

Pasting from that page:

First start the calibre content server as shown below:

calibre-server --url-prefix /calibre --port 8080


Note the use --url-prefix

[bossanova808]

Actually reading that again - do I need to use a full Virtual Host set up rather than just a location directive? I didn't need to do this for the others.

Many thanks for your attention and Calibre is stupendously good BTW!

[bossanova808]

I've added the --url-prefix "/calibre" - but it doesn't seem to 'take' - does this mean if I am locally browsing I should be using localhost:19553/calibre/ ? If I do, I get:

The path '/calibre/' was not found.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "site-packages\cherrypy\_cprequest.py", line 606, in respond
  File "site-packages\cherrypy\_cperror.py", line 227, in __call__
NotFound: (404, "The path '/calibre/' was not found.")

[kovidgoyal]

You need to figure out what URL your main server is passing to calibre and set --usr-prefix accordingly

[kovidgoyal]

A good way to understand the process is to run the calibre server as

calibre-server --usr-prefix /calibre

then go to localhost:8080/calibre in your browser and you will see that the content server now runs with all URLS prefixed by /calibre

[bossanova808]

That is not as easy as it sounds! Any tips on how to do that??

I am currently at:

--with-library "K:\Calibre Library" --port 19553 --username BookLibrary --password XXX --url-prefix "/books"

with (n.b. NOT in a virtual host):

<Location /books/>
    order deny,allow
    deny from all
    allow from all
    ProxyPass http://localhost:19553/
    ProxyPassReverse http://localhost:19553/
</Location>

I have also tried the above with --url-prefix "/calibre" and /calibre/ in the location directive.

Both give the same results - the raw html text but no CSS etc.

[bossanova808]

Oh BTW - if you ARE supposed to use --url-prefix with the ProxyPass methos then you might want to cahnge this note in the docs:

If you are willing to devote an entire VirtualHost to the content server, then there is no need to use –url-prefix and RewriteRule, instead just use the ProxyPass directive.

[bossanova808]

I just tried the other method:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/calibre/(.*) http://localhost:19551/calibre/$1 [proxy]
RewriteRule ^/calibre http://localhost:19551 [proxy]

...and the result is the same as with the ProxyPass method....html text but no css etc.

[kovidgoyal]

Sorry, I do not have the time to walk you through setting up Apache correctly.

[bossanova808]

(Yeah not really what I was asking was it?)

Apache is working fine and serving 5 other reverse proxy apps. So I think the problem is probably Calibre using some non relative URLs or something...I had the same results with one other app and this was the cause in that case (hardcoded references to /gui/). Fixed the non relative URLs and it worked fine, with that app.

Anyway, it's no big deal, and in any case, I've decided the reverse proxy thing actually has some negatives when you use a bunch on inter-related apps anyway, so I have unwound the changes and am back to serving Calibre on its own port.

Thanks for your attention in any case, and the great program that is Calibre.

[Sevie]

Hi guys,

Just wanted to let you know i've had the same problem. Solved it by using the / after the portnumber....

In the httpd_vhosts.conf file the proper command is:
ProxyPass / http//whatever:8080/
The answer was indeed in the logfile.