How to server static files + proxy context

Question

I am wondering how to configure my httpd server to serves the following pages:

My need is to serve static content located in my /var/www/static when url is /context/static and to proxy the remaining to a tomcat server

In this order:

/context/static/* --> files served by httpd
/context/*        --> resources served by tomcat

I have tried to rewrite /context/static/* to a folder pointing to my /var/www/static and added the ProxyPath directive for the remaining but I can't get it working.

What are the best practices and how to achieve that ?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Well, in fact it is quiet easy...

Having such folders configured:

/var/www/static/
               |-  css/*
               |-  js/*
                \  medias/*

The following httpd configuration will redirect static/* to the /var/www and the rest will be proxied

# first rewrite for statics
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/context/static/(.+)$ /static/$1

# then proxy remaining...
ProxyPass               /context  http://127.0.0.1:8080/context
ProxyPassReverse        /context  http://127.0.0.1:8080/context

Answer 2

I've found the following approach that works and is quite general. (4/12/2018)

Location/Proxypass expressions always take priority over any other location block, so you have to Exclude the paths that you don't want to be proxied. the "?!" does that in the regex. Since static content is, um, static, it is not so bad to require that the apache configuration be updated if another directory is needed to be served directly for a different media type.

The following was taken from a server that was proxying a Python Flask application.

<LocationMatch  "^/(?!js|css|media)" >
  ProxyPass   http://127.0.0.1:5000
  ProxyPassReverse   http://127.0.0.1:5000
</LocationMatch>

<Location "/">
  Require all granted
</Location>