Add alias for apache virtualhost with proxypass

If you are hosting an html or php website using apache, you can add DocumentRoot (path of the project Directory) in your virtualhost with ServerName and your web application can be accessed in browser easily. If you want to add Alias for such virtualhost, you can easily add Alias attribute in same virtualhost and you can show content of desired directory if alias is used in the web application url.

But suppose you have created a virtualhost to show the content of another web server like Python, Ruby or Node. You must have used proxypass to achieve this. Adding proxypass and proxypassreverse you can open content of another server through port 80 in apache.

The real issue with proxypass websites are, it is hard to create Alias for the web application urls.
Suppose you want to open content of folder images-2019 when /myimages is typed after domain. If you would use php, you could define.

Alias /myimages /path/of/images-2019

But this will not work here with proxypass virtualhost because it is already showing content of a webserver which is running on another port. This alias can not work with added configuration. To achieve this, you need to add alias in following way

Suppose you want to show robots.txt in a proxypass server(Ex- Django). Your url will be http://your-servername/robots.txt
Django will not show content of robots.txt as robots.txt path should be added in urls.py. Django only serves those content which is defined in it.
To open this url, you need to add in your virtualhost

ProxyPass /robots.txt !
Alias /robots.txt /path/of/robots.txt

Make sure you have added this above proxypass and proxypassrevese parameters, something like this.

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName subdomain.domain.com
ProxyPass /robots.txt !
Alias /robots.txt /path/of/robots.txt
ProxyPass / http://localhost:8000/
ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8000/
</VirtualHost>

Now your servername can open robots.txt using http://subdomain.domain.com/robots.txt

Connect to Docker Mysql remotely using public IP

You want to connect to mysql server which is installed and configured inside docker container, from host or from remote server. To achieve this you need to make sure your host system has public IP. Docker container is a virtual machine. The system where docker is installed known as Host Machine. You can connect from Host Machine to Docker container Mysql server using private IP and public IP both.

Here I am going to show how to connect docker container mysql server using public IP.

1. Your docker container mysql server port (default 3306) should be mapped with one of the port of host system. If no mysql server is running on host system then you can map the same port i.e. 3306 but if a mysql server is running on host system, you need to map docker container mysql server with another port of host system. Suppose it is 3500. When you launch the container using docker run command, you can pass attribute -p with it to map ports between container and host system.

2. Now next thing is, your docker container mysql server config should not be binded to local host or 127.0.0.1 only. It means, this mysql server can be connected from localhost only. As we are connecting mysql server remotely, this option should be commented.

#bind-address = 127.0.0.1

Once you comment it in mysql config, restart the mysql server.

3. Now you need to give global access permission to mysql user. It is your mysql user, you are going to connect into mysql server using this username.
To give global access to mysql user, Host should be % in user table and db table both for the mysql user.
Make sure you have updated Host as % for same combination of user and database in db table.

4. Now make sure port 3500 is opened in your firewall and it can be accessed remotely

5. Now try to connect docker mysql using public ip

mysql -u mysqlusername -p -h 209.45.xx.xx -P 3500

As 3500 is the port where we mapped docker mysql port to Host system port, we will pass this in command to connect to docker mysql server through host system.

Now you should be able to conenct to docker mysql server remotely.